The Phantom Menace
by Engineer Jess
Summary: **Will stay unfinished until I can rewrite the ending.** (Continues from Frozen.) A mysterious object found in hyperspace could indicate to be the end of the galaxy. And this oddity is not a weapon.
1. Hyperspace secrets

**Author Notes: **I know, I know. I got three BLoSC stories in progress. However, I've been building up ideas for this fic for so long, that I couldn't be without putting the first chapter up. Thanks to Captain Buzz Lightyear for info material, EMZ and Heather for ideas and Karen for beta-reading help.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar

Choi Zarah G'Deneb, Ay'noh Darkmatter © Engineer Jess (Ay'noh is a transliteration to English from the Kalevalan name _Aino_. There's no real translation for that name, since it's dialectal, but it would approximately be translated _'the only one'_ or _'sole'_.) 

Mariañ Haydée © Empress Lightyear 

**EPISODE V**

**The Phantom Menace**

"Alright, troops... activate the jump gate... get, set, lightspeed!"

"Okey-dokey, Captain! Here we go. Unless we are getting the _Millennium Falcon effect_ and the warp drive gets formatted."

"Very funny, XR."

Team Lightyear in its whole combination was on the road again. Almost a year and a half had passed since the exploration on the distant Planet Isgurda. Buzz Lightyear was back in his routines as if he had never been in the arms of the dark side. Of course, all the marks of his insanity times had not been swept away with a featherduster. When examining the determined Captain sitting in the pilot chair of 42, one could at first spot the shaped full-beard, and that he did not care to hide his hair so obsessively, as some years ago. The raven, short locks were partly hiding his forehead under them, matching with the expressive brows. However, his behaviour and virtues were again _almost_ the same as in his hero era, before the fall of the Zurgean Empire. In addition, Buzz did not want to be a spoiled, over-bombastic royal any more, but just _almost_ a normal space ranger jack. The aging, though, could be seen a bit from his features. He would be soon on the better side of his thirties.

"Ahh, how interesting... what an artistic spice in my meal to watch the timelines of the by-passing stars!" the robot yawned.

"XR, how many times have you nagged about that topic in the recent weeks? Hyperspace is meant for fast travelling, not sightseeing!" Mira commented.

"Then why couldn't we be in hypersleep? I'm not hyperactively interested in hyperspace, unlike some folks here, who tend to be hypergeeks concerning every very hyper thing", XR snapped back.

"I'm not a hypergeek!  All I ask is no complaints for once. We already had a long patrol when guarding the intergalactic lepidopterology conference. We were even forced to listen to every single lecture about the topic! Eight hours of that pain and then you begin to moan."

"Shh! Blast, stop quarrelling! XR, what is that?" Buzz suddenly shouted.

"Have your ear sensors gone full of mush or what? Can't you hear that the hyperradar is beeping?!"

"Oh, oh, yeah." The android got his caterpillars rolling and approached his console.

"What is it?"

"Ah, um... seems that we've got company."

"What kind of company? Hostile or friendly? Anything can be expected outside Alliance space", Buzz pointed out over his shoulder.

"Now, don't bug me. This scanner isn't as fast as my circuits. Hmm... the echo request tells that the ship or whatsoever is... HUGE. Oh, boy." XR's voice turned to a little whistle. "Quite a fatso!"

"How 'huge'? Some too-well-eaten Dreadnaught?"

"No-ope... we're talking about hyper-issues now... this baby is nothing compared to your daddy's cute little vehicles."

The android's comments brought everyone's eye in his direction.

"I tell you, we cannot do anything if this hunk is hostile. And besides, the matter scanner gives only some gibberish for an answer. It can't recognise the material or the model. And we're approaching at... ahem... lightspeed."

"I'll open up the palpation channel and give a query." Buzz pushed a button on the control panel. "Come in, unidentified flying object... This is Star Cruiser forty-two, under the supervision of Star Command! Please identify yourself? Do you copy?"

Tens of seconds of silence. Lightyear tried a couple of times again. Nothing. Not even a mouse squeaked.

"Odd..." the Captain narrowed his eyes.

"Say what! It's as silent as a box of rubber boots!" XR replied.

"Ranger Nova, open up the channel to Star Command and ask for orders." Buzz continued, "I'll go to check out the radar myself. This is definitely peculiar. Even if the most diabolical persons in the galaxy are approaching us, they always answer."

While Mira was discussing the orders with Nebula, Lightyear wondered the scanner's holograph his head atilt. "This doesn't make sense! This device can't recognise the hull material, whatever it is... oh, craters... look at the size of that thing..." he exhaled.

"Told ya, cap."

From the other part of the command deck, Mira gave a holler, "Commander says we should take a closer look at it. According to him, it may be some abandoned spacecraft. It has occasionally, yet very rarely, happened that empty ships have been found floating around hyperspace. And there's some article in Alliance Law, which orders that space junk has to be gathered away from the wormholes, since it may endanger the traffic safety."

"Like that seatbelts are obligatory?" Booster remembered the Space Ranger Manual, "But Buzz. why are you walking across the ship without seatbelts if you know they're obligatory?"

"Uhh... sorry, but I cannot use a seatbelt if I walk. And I need to see this myself. Blast... as if there was nothing relevant in the Alliance's vehicle database. I have a bad feeling about this. Or not exactly bad, but..." Some green matrix abruptly was flying across the holo. "Wait... now it's giving some signals. The hull is... what?" he was left with his mouth gagged.

"What?" all the others said in unison.

"Craters, this wreck tries to signal that it's _organic_ material. Carbon, some kind of molecules... and some kind of... possibly alloy structures whose element combination is unparalleled. This thing cannot be... from our galaxy."

"Hot rockets..." Booster gaped at him, "Are you sure?"

"I'm Buzz Lightyear, I'm always sure!"

Mira gave a little snort in her co-pilot chair, so that no one else heard. "Yeah, just like his father...  _A bit_ too self-confident."

However, the Team had to fulfil the task they were given to do. Approaching the odd object, it was soon visible even through the windshield. There, at the junction of two different wormholes, could be distinguished this enormous, black lump of something. Its shape was like a bean, smooth in every place. No wings were protruding out of it, neither any kind of elevon. Just this glabrous, round-arched form was there. Its black, opaque surface did not reflect any light back, only seemed to absorb it a bit. It truly did not resemble anything that the Milky Way's technology had provided this far. Something outlandish, something rather awe-inspiring.

"Gee... now as we see it nearer, it starts to have the measures of Star Command Headquarters..." Nova clacked her teeth together.

"Come in, Commander? We have now approached the target", Buzz spoke for the while. "It's a device of some kind, alright... but doesn't actually resemble a space ship, like you suspected."

"Can you see any markings in it? Plates, signs, anything? Send the nanocamera transmission out." Zeb's austere voice came from the comlink.

"Order in action. I'll activate the T-ray sweepers."

Everyone boosted up his or her senses to examine the red holo that was appearing slowly above the reader. The camera little by little remote-scanned the surface of the target. A couple of jaws again drooped open because of the view. Complex carvings, crossing over each other and forming some kind of strange shapes, were echoing back.

"What beautiful decorations!" Mira blinked in astonishment. "But why would anyone do such work to decorate a space ship? It seems that the whole surface of that thing is full of those."

"Maybe it's a moving space museum of modern and a bit more ancient art?" XR suggested.

"No... this is something completely different. Who knows _what_ it is."

"Look at the screen. It's showing no windows or doors, whatsoever. Who's gonna get into that thing if there's no door? Tangeans?" Booster scratched his bald head.

"Definitely not. That's nothing like Tangeans would ever build," came the response. 

"Okay, rangers, you stay there!" Nebula's snap interrupted the small talk from the comm. channel, "I'm getting you enforcements."

"Why? What...?" Lightyear began a bit of wondering.

"We're getting that thing out of there. I believe it's possible with the propulsion and thrust of some bigger transportation vehicles. It's very apparent that it's one of these cases, that someone has been polluting the sensitive ecosystem of hyperspace with some useless trash." 

"But Sir, this is REALLY big! Do you think you can...?" Buzz was quite insecure.

"Sure, sure. Star Command can do anything nowadays. Don't you remember the new tugs the LGM's designed? And that the certain Darkmatters helped the project with their technical skills...?" Zeb gave a laugh.

"Ohh ok, then, it's your order, Sir."

Some hours later, that part of hyperspace resembled some Capital Planet crowded parking lot. Although with that dissimilarity, that the star cruisers did not collide much with each other, and the different captains could not be seen nagging with each other about bumper bruises and scratches in the paint. Now it was attaching long wires and trying to use some magnetic grids to aid the pulling work. It was planned that the strange space pea would be dragged out of there like some car junk from the side of a distant highway. Alliance's new gadgets and doodahs allowed nowadays slow floating in the waves of hyperspace, as if it would be considered a normal vacuum. Slowly but surely, the labour task began to produce results. A colossal jump gate device was switched on, and it created a massive hole into the normal Einsteinian dimensions.  Through that portal, the wandering weirdo was hauled out of its long-time home.

Star Cruiser 42 was not actually taking part of the spell, but inspected the whole show at some distance. The ranger instincts were giving Buzz some nauseous cold shivers along his spine, as if he had sensed something bizarre in this whole thing.

"I still say I have a bad feeling about this..." He fingered the place of his cleft, which was now under the black beard.

XR sceptically twisted his metallic face into some grimace, "Now don't start to blabber about using _the force_, again. Look, we don't live in corny movies or worse, in some animated kids' series! Wakey-wakey, cap."

"Sure, sure... just thinking..." Buzz moreover let his little grey brain cells at once do some humming.

"It'll go to the LGM laboratory... or in this case, outside it. Those green technicians find out what it is. But this far everyone -even I- assumes it's only some useless junk", Mira threw in a comment.

"Hmm..."

-----------

And then... after a couple of days more at Star Command HQ... a preliminary, official-type documentation was put in front of the noses of Team Lightyear.

_An unidentified object found in the hyperspace areas of Delta Quadrant_. **Status**: _unknown._ **Material**: _unknown, primary studies indicate some carbon-based half-organic structure_. **Use**: _unknown._ **Vehicle class**: _unknown or not a vehicle._ **Presumed age/ manufacturing year**: _10,000 to 20,000 years UGT_. **Origin**: _unknown, possibly from an outer galaxy_. **Other notes**: _Outside hull decorations, see appendix B. Supposedly a device of some kind._

Commander Nebula's hand-clap woke the flabbergasted team from their thoughts and got their regards to raise up from the text lines. "So, that's what you dragged away from there. And what are we supposed to do with this thing? It's been brought right beside Star Command, giving a not-so-pleasant view straight through my office window. I'd rather watch a rusty tractor than that black... uh... _something._"

"But, sir, you gave the orders", Buzz replied to the peevish outburst.

"I know, I know... and Madame President has given her two cents too... this will stay here, until it has been found out what it is. The scientists and other big-brained folks who have been here thus far, say they never have seen anything relevant..." The old man took a little walk across his office.

"Is this true what the overhauls tell? 10,000 to 20,000 years old?" Nova looked quite surprised.

"Yes, and that's the main reason why this fuss has started around it. An ancient something, from somewhere... how did it get into hyperspace, why was it abandoned, who made it... what is its purpose? What on Mars and its superdiodes is anyone gonna do with such a thing? Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries."

...to be continued...


	2. Family issues

If talking about mansions and luxury, that must be one of the most typical features concerning a person called Warp Darkmatter. His other major character flaw -beside the tendency to show off, of course- was his immense ego.  It was hard to identify, though, who possessed the gift of autophilia the strongest, his ex-boss, Zurg, or his nowadays-friend-again chum, Buzz.

However, speaking of aspiring to glory, it was apparent truly through the buildings and luxurious apartments of this man. On his evil days, this blue crook had owned a whole moon where he had kept a flock of servants in his colossal mansion. After the stepping away from the dark side, it was turn to crop the seeds of snobbish life elsewhere. His wide, complex underground apartment on Xaneda resembled some grand vizier's domicile, with all the expensive furniture, big sinking divans, and tapestries.

Next, it was of course Capital Planet's turn. As this former scoundrel (or actually calling him furthermore a scoundrel would not be a far-fetched definition) had for some time been able to stomp freely along the streets of this Alliance's core with his big boots, he had been in need of an abode there. Zarah's modest single-family house had been sold and she had stepped up to live in the rooms of the Darkmatter Mansion II. Their habitation was quite complex, modestly said. The male Darkmatter's home was officially in Xatagah, but then again his wife officially lived on Capital Planet. The main key to the door of knowledge why she was usually lodging there, was the landanah-specialized enterprise she owned. But then again, as Warp wanted to have a decent place to sojourn there, he had bought a site and built up this half-palace there. And then again, Zarah often went to Xaneda...this was the merry-go-round of changing planets.

In every case, the conclusion is that Warp Darkmatter is bombastic. And that he wants to flaunt. Thus, in the suburban areas of Capital Planet, was squatting this fortress, whose main entrance was decorated with Roman pillars. On the foreyard, where the gaze of the by-passers most often was aimed at, was huddling a smugly-grinning statue of the owner itself, in the middle of a small fountain. The garden was not that remarkable, since Agent Z had wanted to fill almost the whole site with this 'modest' den. Then again, as marble was not quite weatherproof in the cold winters, he had chosen red brick to keep the walls up. What came to the architecture, the building was... ahem... original. It had five floors, the walls filled with little balconies of different sizes. There were round-arched and rectangular windows, depending on the floor. At least the frames of the topmost one were shaped like ovals. All in all, it was a very peculiar bustle, together with all the little façades and the Roman pediment above the front door. The roof was flat, so that all the rainwater would have nicely gathered there to form a swimming pool if there would have not been good drainpipes. The disadvantages of this kind of frippery were that there were too many rooms with no use and it took an eternity to clean up the dust. But, of course, for guest-use it was ideal.

Today was actually one of those diurnals that the Darkmatter household was filled with visitors -temporal, and those who spent several nights in the guest rooms. It was the middle summer, but the days had been cool and rainy the past two weeks, since the deep-space dollop was found. However, the weather phenomena had no mystical connection to that lump at all. Because of the little chill, the windows were kept shut, and the guests forced to hunch inside, in the large living-room. Warp had apparently adopted well to Xanedian furnishing, since even this place was conquered by tapestries, all kinds of inside curtains, and pillows on the floor. Mainly the colours there were dark red, and black, with a shade of purple. As Booster had completely invaded the sofa, Buzz the divan, XR the hammock, Mira was allowed to feel herself a bit odd by sitting on one of those sinking pillows. Emperor Zurg lolled lazily in a high-backrest armchair, like in some throne, sipping at a drink. His young wife, Mariañ Lightyear, was chatting girlishly with Zarah Darkmatter, while the blue man himself kept some small talk up with his former Master. 

Yes, so had the relations changed during all this time. Zora and his _Smoopsiepoo_ had been wed a few months before. Everyone had the opinion that the surgeon was too young for him, with 28 years of age difference; however, mostly everyone handled this with humour, excluding one person. For Buzz, it was a fish-bone to swallow. He had often privately discussed this with Warp, with whom he was chummy again after all the mousehunt years. He considered Mariañ a really nice girl, but there was the point that she was just a _girl _in his eyes. It was ultimately troublesome for him to call someone nine years younger his stepmother. In his opinion, someone so year-lacking would be too young even for his girlfriend. But... whatever Buzz's cranium was then opposing, Zurg and his birdie kept their heads together.

Other life could be spotted there too in this room, added to the normal gang. In Zarah's arms was the result of the Isgurda-trip. This little girl, named Ay'noh Darkmatter, was barely seven months old. She was a healthy wee tot, although her mother's early duration of pregnancy had severely hung in the balance. There was the fact that she had been almost in a deadly state when the new life had bloomed inside her. In addition, combining the DNA of two completely different species in such a way was not a piece of blazar. But despite all these problems in the basket, no harm was occurred for the progeny. After the unusual eleven months (this was due to the different DNA) of gravity, she had brought this well-rounded infant into the daylight. Now the petite round-faced packet was in full sleep, puffing a bit. From under the little dark-red cap she had, were flowing soft but strong black-blue locks, contrasting with her fair, almost white skin. This feature Ay'noh had inherited from her mother, as well as the big, bright green eyes.

And Zarah, she was back in her slim measures. Good physical exercise had made the stomach vanish. At the moment, she was chatting with Mariañ about as fascinating and intriguing topic as baby food. Choi was that type of woman that would have preferably pondered quark's inner structure than this kind of intergalactic mommy-mumbling. But Mariañ was Mariañ, and her interests were others. "So, from the 3rd month on the normal thing is to..."

Warp, across the room, caught his wife's words and joked back, "What is normal food, Za babe? I remember when ya carried the li'l one, you were munchin' happily ice cream and boiled potatoes together, spiced with salt. Not to mention anchovy, and that... what was it?... that brown, odd-looking mess... rye budding."

The whole room burst into laughter, whereas Zarah's cheeks and forehead got a nice crimson shimmer. 

Booster was the only one whiningly wondering, "What's wrong with potatoes and ice scream together? It only needs a bit chocolate dip and peanut butter..."

The discussion continued on the lighter side. Warp kept grinningly asking Buzz about his occasional new nightlife. Namely, peculiar things had happened in the younger Lightyear's course of time. After he had been allowed to tap away from the bleak hospital rooms, he had noticed he had property on such a weird place as Trade World. In the most notorious part of Killersville was jutting the even more notorious bar called _The Black Hole_. And no one, not a single person had come to claim it back. And also, for Buzz' sheer amazement it indicated that he had even loyal servants there. Those grubs, who had almost worshipped him as the Z Empire Prince, where furthermore calling the shots there.

One day, the Captain had taken his father and a good fistful of space rangers with him and flitted to that Galactic Ghetto. At the spot, he concluded that maybe it would be the best, if he furthermore kept the place, although with some crucial changes. And the insect lackeys were quite easily bent to serve his reformed self. Although they were several hundreds in amount, Zurg with no efforts after a bellowing rebuke, had frizzled even the last drops of the dark side out of them. This all was finished with a pleased Jim-kraken-dandy, and the alterations were started immediately.

After a good year, Killersville was only a mild shadow of its old self. The crooks and scum spat at the whole idea that the core of their lair was now owned by the Pride of Star Command. Thus, little by little, they picked their bones up and moved to tease other areas of Trade World. So, the underground oasis became the most peaceful part of that planet. _The Black Hole_ was a bit rebuilt and widened up to a small hotel. It had joined together with a nice nightclub for the less scandalous population. And, as absurd as it sounded, Buzz used to host there in the free weekends he occasionally had. There, dressed to a crimson red silk shirt and black trousers, he did not quite resemble his former self any more. Yet, on the weekdays he was again a decent space ranger, patrolling with his team and 42.

But during the chit-chat about what DJ would come to sample the background music the next weekend, Zurg brought his concern about the lack of one thing in his scion's life. "Son, have you not met anyone yet?"

"Umm... what?" Buzz's big, blue eyes turned flustered towards his father.

"You know very well what I am talking about. You have not told your father if you have finally found a dandy girlfriend for yourself or not."

Buzz's forehead began to have a healthy red colour, when he confessed, biting his lips, "Umh, well, not exactly..."

Zora left a deep sigh from his armchair. "I should have known that. Hrmh. Tsut-tsut-tsut."  

"Um... Father, could we discuss this some other time?"

Mira and the rest of Team Lightyear exchanged some amused glances on the background.

"No", Zoxedaszec snarled. "You do know you should finally steel up yourself and ask some dandy young maiden out with you. Hrmh, this is a tardy matter."          

Zurg's scolding lecture started to become oppressing for Buzz. As his father left the next sentence flow out with his deep bass voice, the captain would have wanted to find a hole under the heaviest rock of the galaxy.

"Buzzy, I am truly concerned with your personal life. You are thirty-four years old and you still do not have a girlfriend. Should it not be about time to start to think about building a family?"

"Dad, shht..." Buzz mumbled, attempting to hush Zurg's too clear speech.

"You shall listen to your Father now, Buzzy boy", the elder man continued, determined. "Quasars, you have not thought about your future at all. You shall start to search for some female company." He folded his arms across his wide chest.

The others in the parlour were holding back their titters, but for the target of harangue, this was a severe issue. He would have been very pleased if someone had thrown a bucket of invisibility paint over him and he would have been able to slink out of the room unnoticed. XR's words reached his ears as he was hiding his face into his both palms.

"Hey cap, I can help! I know many tootsies around here! You know, you could try..."

Abruptly, the Captain rose up roughly from his chair. On his face could be seen the dilemma that scorched his inners. "If you will excuse me, citizens, I'll go out for a little walk." He nearly yelled out his syllables. Next, they heard a clack of the French window that led to the veranda, and through that to the garden. The rest of the fellows were left gaping after him.

"Zora, I think you hurt his feelings", the female Lightyear touched the Emperor's arm lightly.

"No, I do not think so. That boy has to learn that he is not so young any more. And I shall not be left without grandchildren. This is not the first time I have mentioned about this to Buzzy." Picking up a crochet work holo-mag, the sturdy man began to read it as if he had cared a fragment of Thevenin voltage about the whole thing any more.

Warp therefore felt that he should go to exchange a couple of words with the sullen pal. "Heya, folks, the lunch is comin' soon. I just go to throw some cold water over _Buzzy_ an' get him back in." Hence the porch door rumbled after him.

Darkmatter caught up the sulking ranger behind a large bush. There the brave captain was sitting in the grass, leaning his back to the pillar of a birdbath. Pouting to the arriving Warp, he was about to rise up.

Chuckling the blue alien still stopped him, "What's the matter? C'mon, be a man. We got lunch comin' and..."

Buzz interrupted him by sighing, "You don't understand. This is a grievous thing for me."

"What? The universe is full of tootsies! Just go and be gallant!"

The men had begun to lead a slow walk along a narrow paved path. There Lightyear went on with his frustrated exhaling. "Well easy for you to say. Baddies seem to gather all the girls around them." He cast a side-glance at Warp. "For me... Blast, I don't know how to put this... I... I'm shy."

"Ha-ha! Shy, you? Quasars, ya own a whole nightclub, it should be more than easy for you to pick up some pretty sweetie. Come to think of it, ya don't look so bad, of course you're not as handsome as me. But, as ya got even that beard hiding your dumb too-big chin, there shouldn't be much wrong with your appearance."

Nevertheless, the wrinkles on ex-Zenith's forehead stayed. He kept his angry eyes aimed at the ground, his pose stooped. "You don't understand, do you? I really, really would like to come to know some nice citizen girl, but when I'm around women, I just... I'm not myself. Blast, I begin to stammer and let out words I wasn't intending to say. I mean, I was once doing shopping for Dad because he was at this Intergalactic Needlework Conference on Planet Zartha, and I went to this little wool shop on the High Street because he was out of some material for his handiwork..." He inhaled and paused to wipe sweat off his forehead. "I started talking with the saleswoman about something... don't remember what it was any more. I noticed she was... very good-looking and I really liked her long, thick light-brown hair. So... I thought... craters... to say some nice about her hair. So I uttered something like _'Uh, ma-am, I just wanted to say you have a beautiful yarnful of hair...' ._ A wee pause was needed again. Darkmatter's expression had turned to surprise during his friend's explanation. "Double craters and their pups, I must've mixed my associations with the yarn ball pile she had on the table. But, I was so ashamed that I stomped out of the store and left my purchases there. Never visited that place again."

Darkmatter spread his hands staggered in the air. "Why? Quasars, ya missed a good chance! Who knows if the babe would have even liked ya!"

"Yeah, right. And she would have given me a hug and giggled _'Aren't you the sweetest space man I've ever met!'  _Not in this universe." Buzz slapped his cheek with his palm.

"But haven't ya gotten some scintillation with ...ahem..." Warp began counting with his flesh hand's fingers, "Ozma Furbanna, Gravitina, Bonnie von Madm..."

Buzz' face turned to horror. "What? Who has told you about...?"

The blue one tried to form a nimbus over his crown. "Tra-la-laa... li'l doveys coax, as always. Hmm... I think it was Father Dark Lord and that know-it-all gadget jar, who gave out li'l clues..."

"Craters. Dad and XR just cannot hold their tongues. Well... Gravitina is out of question. She has this big head that gathers all kinds of junk orbiting it. And then the things she wears. If she'd once put something _decent_ on, but uh-uh-uh..." he shook his head. "And besides, she's EVIL. Then Ozma... umm... she doesn't like me. She really doesn't like me. It... never turned out to be anything with her, after all. And Bonnie... uh... talk about the age difference. No." At this point, bale shaded his face. With a grievous crack in his voice, Lightyear concluded, "Maybe it's meant to be that Buzz Lightyear flies solo."

Then came the classic quiet instant that always jumps there after the sober discussions. Warp had not really guessed the situation being this bad. "Hmm... maybe ya should try one of those courses where they teach polite manners an'..."

"No, absolutely not. I... I just have to think this over... in my own way."

---------------------

A few hours later, the lunch was eaten. Warp had been able to drag the moping Buzz inside and feed him some snack, and the mood of this Ex-Prince of Z Empire had gotten a more jovial tone. Hence the living-room was colonized again, as everyone sipped their afternoon coffees. Warp kept playing some silly babble game with Ay'noh who had woken up from her nap.

"Goo-goo." The big alien formed a cone with his lips and uttered some goofy sound effects.

"Dada." The little one responded.

"Daa."

"Daddy." The girl grabbed his goatee with her little hand and pulled rather hard, so that the father yelped.

"Ouch! Quasars, this kid is getting evil!" He guffawed, and lifted the baby a bit further from his sore beard.

"No-ope," XR commented, "She just wants to tell her daddy to stop the goon gurgle. Heh, a few seconds ago she produced a lot more understandable words than her parent. Maybe she wants you to go to take some speech training."

At the same instant, the doorbell rang.

"Uh, will someone get that? I got some li'l pest in my hair," Darkmatter threw in half-amused. Ay'noh, who he had kept a bit too high with his hands, had now gripped his hair with both hands and was with good speed trying to pull it out. "I gotta teach this lass that daddy is not the neighborhood dog."

Thus Mira padded to the front door, coming back after a few seconds. "Buzz, it's for you. Ed the Courier."

Surprised, the captain put down his coffee cup and bolted to the entrance. There was this blonde postman waiting for him, with a registered post packet.

"And sign here." He was offered a pen and receipt.

"So what's this all about? It's Saturday, a bit strange to be delivering mail! And by the way, how did you know..." Buzz asked while putting his autograph on the paper.

Cutting him short, Ed replied straight, "...knew you were here? From Commander Nebula, he told me to find you in the Darkmatter Grand Mansion. By the way, this delivery is from him. Said he was too busy to start a vidphone session, so he decided to send this to you as a direct post."

Lightyear was given a small case where holo-disks were usually kept. Opening up the cover with some wonder he slouched back to the common hall.

"Hot rockets! Did Ed bring you a packet?" Booster merrily assigned, "What's in there?" This rotund, kid-like Jo-Adian was keen on all kinds of presents and surprises.

"This is from Nebula. A holo-rom. Just marveling at what this is... Wait, there's a label... _'Urgent new information about B.L.U.F.F. X-1014._'"

"What? Beta-Labile Unidentified Far-away Finding X-1014? But that's..." Mira raised her brows.

"...the hyperbogey we found in hyperspace," the mecha concluded.

"Jim-kraken-dandy", Zurg suddenly started to rub his fingers together, an enthusiastic gleam in his eyes, "I have waited for new information about that unidentified flying object. You shall put the disk right ahead to the holo-reader, Son."

"Wow! This is so exciting!" Booster's eyes shone, too. "It's like we would be back on Isinglass and reading _The Perenna's Journal_ together in the big tent!"

"Hey, hey, big guy, I think you should vent the moths out of your ears." XR crossed his arms over his metallic torso, "It's _Isgurda_ and _The Peregrinator's Journal_. If the planet was made of isinglass, we would have got stuck there for forever. And if that would have happened, Buzz would be now an evil emperor using purple robes and a grinning helmet."

"Oh well, whatever I'd be, then. Troops, let's take look at this..." The younger Lightyear installed the minidisk-looking info rom into the reader. A red 3D-sheet with text lines and images rose above the utensil. Zurg began to read, because his voice was very audible in its bass frequencies.

"New study results about the unknown article, hmm... this tells they have estimated the age wrong. It shall... _what_?" Not very often the mighty emperor was seen gagged that much. His big, brown eyes had gone round like two Frisbees. His long, thin finger was prodding the holo with the tip of the nail.

"What?" came the unison-yelp.

"No years... were given to it."

"What do you mean, no years?" Buzz scratched his head. Physics and mathematics were not his best area of knowledge.

"It says here it has traveled in the hyperspace approximately _10 to 20 million_ light years! Quasars, and those pathetic green grubs gave at first 10,000 to 20,000 years age for it."

"Whoa..." Warp left a little whistle. The others had their jaws almost on the floor, except Munchapper, who had also a bit of problems understanding physics.

"But it says years, then why do you say it was not given any years?"

"A light year is not a concept of timing, but for measuring distances. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year; that would be nine comma forty-six multiplied with ten raised to the powers of fifteen. That's in meters. And if that is multiplied with ten million that makes a lot of more nulls after the digit", Zarah explained, with no technical jargon mixed with the sentence at least once.

"Ohh..." Booster grasped the matter, "So that's like... a _really_ long trip!"

"Really really." XR nodded.

When the constraint had ebbed somewhat, more facts were brought forth. There were assumptions from where the space roamer could have originated from.

"In this case I think those green squeakers are schitzoids. They should think as one 'cause of that unimind-whatsoever-stuff, but they still give 'independent' ideas from where that trash is from?" Warp was astonished at the hypotheses.

"Indeed..." Zurg fiddled his beard, "They can not decide where it could have started its journey. How pathetic. If I was there with my supreme intelligence, I would... hmm... ahem... estimate something else." He was a bit annoyed because could not pick up anything himself. "Grooh, in any case, I shall believe it is not from our Group of Galaxies. Andromeda, the Magellan Clouds and even such galaxies as NGC205 seem to be a little bit too near."

It indicated that the UFO had some kind of inner structure, as if it could be divided into six separate parts. That much the X-ray scans had told. No real sense was made of the carvings all around it; there was only this very feeble theory that those might be some grooves for energy canalling. At the moment the Star Command engineers were trying to figure out if there were any hieroglyphs or relevant that could be read, in it.

"Energy? They think it could produce energy?" Mira leaned her head against her hand, the elbow on the living-room table.

"But, there's much stupidity to it, if it was an energy source. Too big for that," Choi, the energy economics specialist pointed out.

"But it's so _exceedingly_ old! What if it's like a steam engine from the stone age?" The robot suggested.

"Nah, not very likely."

"Hmm. This scribble presents a theory that it is not a weapon. But that energy has something to do with it."

"There would be sense in it that it's not a weapon. But then again there's no sense. Why someone would send a weapon to float randomly around hyperspace? So obviously it's not a weapon, then." Nova tilted her head.

"I still suggest it's a moving museum!" XR grinned.

"Luckily I am not any more on the dark side." Zora rubbed his fingers again together, "I would have my hornet army surrounding your pathetic flying object, wra ha ha muhahah." The old man was the only one to laugh to his own joke, the others only rolled their eyes. They had enough experience how the Emperor had wanted to get everything into his claws, while spreading his evilness even in the most marginal places of the Milky Way.

"Whatever it is, there's a huge risk in even studying it. My ranger instinct has never failed before, and it tells that there's something wrong with that finding." Buzz drummed his fingers on the surface of the table.

"The presence of the dark side..." Zurg crumbled. "It searches its balance. Its balance has been disturbed in the previous times. No Dark Lord has risen instead of me, and..."

"Dad, don't start _that_ again." Buzz had heard enough jargon about that topic.

"In any case, what kind shivers or quivers anyone would feel, there is a risk. Come to think of our galaxy's technology... we haven't been able to contact even Andromeda, our nearest friend. Two comma three light years is a bit too much", Mira added.

"E.T. phone home..." Warp had started to play with his daughter, again. Obviously the subject did not inspire him much anymore.

"Hmh. We just have to hope that Madame President, the Universe Protection, and LGM's know what they're doing..." Buzz sighed, a bad side buzz in his brains warning him about something.

---------------------

A week more passed... and another call arrived for Team Lightyear and their usual companion, telling that more results had been found. And that this might lead to the activation of the odd space ghost.

...to be continued...


	3. Shock

-----------Star Command Headquarters-------

Team Lightyear, Commander Nebula, and their colorful companion starting from Zurg and ending to Warp sat in green, padded seats in an LGM study laboratory. It was a white large room with computers along the walls, and tables on the middle floor filled with all kinds of gadgets and analyzing tools. There was also a big plasma screen attached in the back wall. The group was gathered to sit (excluding the tiniest Darkmatter, who was in nursery) in front of it, staring at the monitor as if they had been adolescents watching an intriguing adventure movie in cinema. A few of those green foam-extinguisher-sized aliens were explaining the topic of the screen in a choir, while some others buzzed around the electronic devices like enthusiastic bees after honey.

"We are absolutely sure about it!" a line of LGM's answered to the question Zeb Nebula had posed a few seconds ago.

"Hrmh..." the austere old man fiddled his moustache. "Craters, why would anyone want to build something like that? Sweet mother of Venus, for what purposes?"

"Ooo, well..." the engineers looked at each other's triplet eyes a bit shiftless at first, but then again gave a keen unison yelp, "For fast traveling of course! Remember when the hyperdrive was invented? It allowed us lightspeed traveling inside the Galaxy. And now this could open us a way to completely other dimensions!"

"So you are _absolutely _sure that it's not a weapon?" Buzz squinted his eyes and pouted a bit. He was seemingly meditating something.

"Oo, no, not a weapon!" the chorus confirmed, "Most possibly, with the largest odds it's a _dimension opener_. Just like the hyperdrive generator activates the jump gate to hyperspace!"

"Oh, great, my all-time favorite hyper-topic! Traveling and sightseeing in hyperspace!" XR yawned, "Hmm... I could write a book already about it. Which might be an interesting idea since I might earn some good uni-bucks with it!" Somehow the robot was drawn away to his own fantasies, "I can see already the headlines! _A Space Ranger Author Breaks All Records with His Number One Selling Book!_ I could give autographs to pretty tootsies and..."

"Kr-hm..." Mira knocked the dome helmet of the mecha with her knuckles, "Aren't we getting a bit sidetracked here?"

"What? Are you trying to muffle the poetic Muse inside me and hinder my brilliant beginning authorship?" the robot ranger began to shed fake tears, taking a giant tissue out of his inners. He was about to sneeze his nose with it, but then ultimately remembered that he did not possess a nose, and put the item bothered back inside him.

Mira rolled her eyes for answer and suggested that the LGM's would continue analyzing the more heated issue than XR's imaginary bestseller.

"Umm... so what do you exactly say this thing is?" Buzz scratched his hair. "Umh, could you explain it a bit more on... the easier line?"

"Sure!" one green wight replied, "It's like a door to other worlds. Yet... we don't know exactly where. But we have scanned the inner structures and classified their functions..."

"Although this is still an assumption..." another LGM with a notebook popped to explain.

"But here in the screen you can see an illustration we have made of it!"

Everyone gawped again at the flat monitor. There was depicted a 3D-structure of this gigantic whatever-lump with green lines. There was also visible that it could be divided into six separate, connected parts.

"We understand it needs an energy impulse for activation. Then, once it is switched on like a colossal light bulb, according to our theories it can maintain dynamically its own energy resources until it's switched off!" a scientific choir concluded.

"Hmh. Isn't that against the second law of thermodynamics? The entropy grows, it's impossible to create a perpetual motion machine", Zarah pointed out.

"Umm..." the LGM's cast some double-minded regards at each other. "It... it _can_ maintain its own energy according to our calculations. This is due to its organic molecule structure... we... we believe it can somehow take advantage of such faint space-energy sources like cosmic radiation..."

"Or simply light."

"But it needs a starters pulse to live, in every case."

Buzz' black hackles rose up, "Live? _Live!_ Did you say live? What do you mean, you mean this is some kind of monster that will be awakened from its beauty sleep...?"

"No-oooh!" a chorus soothed down Lightyear's fears, "Not a real living or thinking umm... _thing_, because this is a machine after all. It's like hmm... how would we explain it?"

"Like a cell. Runs and works on its own", the redhead nodded.

"I have been the mighty, glorious Emperor of a reign, where man and machine were united", a too-familiar hollow voice began explaining. "As much as it was possible in my nowadays ruined, fallen Empire, it shall be possible more in the future. And here we see a feasible product of such technology, indeed. And thus we understand how pathetically lack-wits and retards everyone in our Galaxy is, since we cannot still control such forces as what this thing may hold inside it... Except _I_ am not of course one of those pathetic blockheads. I possess the supreme ingenuity and intelligence, which is a cosmic truth. Ahh, Nana Zurg would be so proud to see me now, muhahah!"

Apparently the discussion was directed again to sidetracks, since on the background could be heard XR's very quiet, but audible comments on Mariañ Lightyear's expressions. Her dreamy eyes were directed straight to Zurg, roaming in some world of illusions. And then the Emperor himself began bellowing in anger, because he abruptly had started to think about the shape of the deep-space finding. He swore the galactic aliens to the murkiest dungeons because they had not made their fantastic widget to the form of a copious Z-letter. Hence in his opinion the first so-sagacious strangers were now just pathetic earthworms who could not even understand the glory and beauty of this marvelous particular outlining. And more stupidity went on. Warp had started to twit Zarah on something, and now the blue hunk was chasing the little woman around the laboratory room. The LGM's looked shiftless around, not knowing how to cool down the absurd situation. If it wasn't for Commander Nebula, the whole tumble would have possibly continued until the next morning.

"Order in room! This is not the monkey house of a zoo!" the old man bawled his mouth as wide as a baguette. "Craters, what's wrong with you people?"

And so the silence fell upon the hall. A bit embarrassed everyone returned to their seats, to hearken to the important lecture they were given about the space mysteries.

Warp still did not throw his amused mood quite quickly away, but began kidding on Buzz' fears. "See, it's not an ancient evil monster, which wakes up from its gigantic coffin and lands of Capital Planet and stomps the skyscrapers broken with its huge hairy feet. Hmm... although... there might be a chance that there is hiding some King-Kong, or Godzilla, or a hungry carnivorous plant inside it... boo-hoo... fre-eaky... "

"Hmph!" the Captain snorted back.

"Darkmatter. Do not scare Buzzy Boy, he may see freaky nightmares", Zurg scolded him, a truly grave expression on his experienced face.        

"Freaka me, freaka you..." Warp sneered back, until another yell of Nebula was required to turn the kindergarten back to Star Command.

Booster's shy question allowed the serious matters to begin again. He had been silent in his corner during all the scientific talk, but now wanted to know if the LGM's had found any clue from where the finding would have origined.

"About 12 million light years it has been traveling in hyperspace", the tiny engineers squeaked together. "Definitely it hasn't started its journey from our group of galaxies. We assume it's from an outer galaxy called NGC2403; that would approximately fill in the details of the distance."

"Hot rockets... where is this en-gee-cee... or what was it?" the big Jo-Adian was not to stay in his chair for enthusiasm. He was proud in a way to notice that his question had begun an important discussion.

One LGM pressed a button on the controlling keyboard, and a map of deep space was soon illustrated in the scientific movie screen.

"In this part of the Milky Way it can be seen weakly in the constellation of Cameropardalis. But NGC2403 is actually situated in a group of galaxies called Sculptor."

"And if the finding is theoretically activated, it assumingly opens up a sort of portal there? Is that the whole point of this issue?" Buzz' puny brain cells had buzzed and woven up a neat observation.

"Umm well yes. If the activation the day after tomorrow is successful."

This reply made the determined Captain rise roughly up from his place, so that the chair plumped down. "What? You're going to _activate it_? Now? No! You can't do it just like that! We... we know nothing about those who sent it! You haven't even told us why anyone would send a thing like this in space!" he yelped hastily.

"Hey hey, pal, relax!" Warp commented raising his brows, "What's the storm about? We don't want a hurricane inside this room, it's messy enough already. And what's this idiotic chirrup about some _activation_?"

But so did Commander Nebula give a scream too. He sat in his chair, jaw verging on the threshold level. "_I was not aware of this!_ Who has ordered you to activate it? Pulsars and their anthills, I was just told what the cratery wreck is and now I am told that something has been done behind my back! What is this?" he barked to the poor LGM's, all of whom would have wanted to find a mousehole to hide.

"Well... we DID find out already earlier what the device is... but we were just now allowed to tell it to a certain VIP-audience..." the aliens whined.

"ALLOWED? _VIP-audience?_ Craters, am I not your Commander? I order here! Who has given you ORDERS so that I haven't heard?" Zeb roared so that everyone's myrinxes were to burst.

All the wee green beings whizzed behind a large table in fear so that only the antennas of their heads were visible for the others. They piped in unison, "Oo-o... It w-was an or-order from the Alliance Parliament. T-they called us and..."

"Craters! I'm the Commander of Star Command!"

"Oo, Sir, but..."

"Who is the cratery person behind this plotting against me?"

"S-Senator Ämpäri, t-the leading minister of t-this p-project..."

"This is supposed to be MY project, not the property of some corrupted red-tapist! Give me his comlink number now, I'll vidphone that... grmbfff..." the hoary man attempted to muffle the nasty bynames coming out of his throat.

One of the fear-quivering LGM's passed Zeb a little notebook. The elder man panted and sweated furthermore in his rave, but was in sense enough to leave the laboratory and go to perform his quick com-session in another room. Before he rumbled away like a thunderstorm, he noted, "I won't accept this! I'll speak for you too, Buzz."

"Blast, yes! Tell that I won't agree on the activation at all!" the Captain shouted from behind Zeb's back.

Fifteen minutes crept with the steps of tortoise, until the door clacked and the disappointed-looking Nebula walked lame in. His inner gale had abated, but his face was shadowed by stringency. Mere timidity oppressed the room, and it was broken just until Zeb hacked a bit. He took an acute gaze at the Captain and others. "I... I discussed with this Senator Ämpäri. Craters, what a mess... I've been ignored like some rookie. I'm afraid... they can't take either mine or your opinion into consideration. Universe Protection and the Galactic Alliance have gotten the agreement of Madame President to start to prepare _the_ activation. _They_ don't think the finding is hostile."

"But... but... why wasn't I listened to? My ranger instinct..."

"I'm sorry, Buzz, but you're not a politician, or a statesman of the Alliance. You're just a normal space ranger, although a very laudable one, with the Space Ranger Manual work and all. But you're not a person to decide the Alliance's crucial things like this. As you see, even my opinion was not much asked", Zeb sighed and trotted to Buzz from his place. Putting a hand on his shoulder, he asserted, "This is what I was told... there has been a so-called closed session in the Alliance Parliament. A voting has been done on what to do with B.L.U.F.F. X-1014. The issue is, that once the LGM's found out -And now I just heard this happened already a week ago- that it's a dimension opener, a gateway to new 'undiscovered worlds', nearly everyone in the parliament gave his or her votes agreeing that the activation should be done, and immediately. Politicians, they are harum-scarum..."

"But what the craters and blasters and bazookas and all kinds of stupid space junks do they think they profit from this?" Lightyear spread distressed his arms, in vain endeavoring to get some bite of sense into the question.

"The pathetic mortals of the pathetic Galactic Alliance..." the deep snort of Zurg came from the other side of the room "Buzzy boy, you are once right in this issue. Although the finding might be glorious and hmm... yet not shaped like a Z, grrhumph, in every case, it shall be very careless to play with matches, children." And just now the comprehension-clutch was put in the 'on-position' in his head. Opinions. Of course he had an opinion about the activation too. "Graaghrh! And why was not my, _my_, MY appraisal asked EITHER? Groaak, I am Emperor! I am _always_ right! I shall..." Zora's eyes blazed as he even thought about the whole ignorance of his glory and majesty.

As well indecisive Zeb hobbled to him, as if making some kind of tournée across the room. "You're not emperor any more, keep that in mind. And you're officially dead, remember that too. Although you're getting pension from the Alliance and can help us here in Star Command, you're even less important person for them than your son." Sarcasm could heavily be heard spicing up his tone, "...And hmm... I definitely wonder if they would suddenly consult someone, who over 25 years fouled up with evil plotting against them, has tried to turn half of the galaxy into slobbering dog slaves, boom up the Capital Planet about five hundred times, and furthermore has blundered with all kinds of other stupidities against the intergalactic peace... " 

"What? I was the expert of evilness and schemes! And I indeed would have had this milksop Alliance in my claws unless it was not my ninny boy, who cannot even find himself a girlfriend, stopping me and vitiating my extraordinarily pastries of maliciousness! Their piquant naughty nutmeg odeur did not fill my nostrils any more! Graagh, and now when I have turned away from the path of the dark side, I am treated like some floppy old flour sack, although I would have even biceps to share! Hrrmph!" After this bluster the tick in Zoxedaszeĉ's head directed him back to the theme Buzz had started, namely what were truly the profits of commancing such a task.

"The Alliance truly thinks this is an opportunity that cannot be wasted, an opportunity that rarely happens in the universal timelines... they see the gate, its opening, as an Arc de Triomphe to the future, to unknown secrets, to technical advancing, anything you can imagine. They think that those who built the object, sent it to hyperspace as a kind of shout, _'hey, here we are, we want to share our knowledge, technical skills and culture with you!' ._ Well... those were almost the exact words of Mr. Ämpäri. What a fool..." Zeb sighed.

"Craters!" Buzz cursed. He had not much paid attention to how his father had nicely called him 'ninny', but was only absorbed to the conversation of minute.

"Quasars!" Zurg bellowed right at the same instant. 

"But my instincts say that the presence of the dark side..." they both interjected in clear stereo, watching then a bit baffled at each other. 

"As was said, it happens the day after tomorrow", Zeb added, nevertheless not caring about the mumbo-jumbo of dark sides.

"What kind of preparations are there for this?" Now even Darkmatter had quit his kidding and ironizings. "You're just gonna go knock-knock some uncle alien's front door like scout boys selling cookies? _Hey, Mister, will ya donate our new clubhouse?_" he imitated the last sentence in high-pitched childspeak.

"And what about the energy impulse? How will that be performed?" Zarah put her nose in the middle.

"Mr. Short-Wit Ämpäri was short in his sayings. He only snapped at me that nearly all the star cruisers need to be ready for immense security action. Patrolling around the activation area... meaning that." Next, Zeb cast his cantankerous eyes at one LGM, who still hid behind the table even after such a long time. "And these, who seemingly have turned to serve other hosts, masters, and lords, can tell about the cratery activision."

"Umm... ee.... erm..." a pack of LGM's stirred around the floor. They were seemingly embarrassed because of the distrust they had caused in Nebula. This was a lot, lot trickier case than for example the cheat of building XR.

"Now will you tell Mrs. Darkmatter what she asked or WHAT? Or will you just jut there like mushrooms the whole day?"

"Ooo... yes... well, we have built an energy blaster for that purpose. It will be directed towards the object and give it the boost it needs."

So the discussion continued forwards, in a tensed atmosphere. Nothing could be done any more to hinder the happenings that would follow.


	4. Activation of the mystery

-----Two days later, the near space of Star Command--------

Rarely did a sole terrestrial see so many star cruisers together in a mighty formation. The muscles of Star Command were strengthened up to their breaking points. The event that would go on this day would need immense security from all the possible sources the Alliance could provide.

The silent finding, the opaque space bean hovered in its marked position a bit further from Star Command Headquarters. The gleam of distant suns reflected faintly from it, giving an eerie atmosphere to it. It was breathing all the ancient universal mysteries. Its immense size awoke demure awe, as it sat there in the soundless vacuum.

Star cruiser forty-two was leading of course the security operation. In a good range, the ships were surrounding the eccentricity, ready for hard actions if anything peculiar would happen. The energy blast device the LGM's had designed, was detached to one ship, and aimed right at the other end of the target. There had not indicated to be any starting point in the far-away finding, since it looked just the same almost on every side.

Madame President's imposing representative ship floated also present, behind it a good flock of Alliance's Senator vessels, as well as some private civilian vehicles. Among these was a place for the Darkmatters and the rest of the Lightyears, too. The latter groups of persons kept comlink connections all the time up with Team Lightyear.

The ambiance was full of insecurity, agitation, but also effervescent curiosity. Nevertheless, what came to Buzz Lightyear, something was oppressing his mind. Yet this was not actually present, moreover it was something distant. Like a smell of a faraway storm that would sweep over the landscape. And this feeling that Zurg had as well pestering his subconscious, had spread also to the Darkmatters and rest of Buzz' comrades. Booster was so nervous in the rear part of 42 that he ate his fingernails through the gloves of his space ranger uniform. Mira doddered in her copilot chair, blabbering something antsy about her new pink living room curtains (that apparently had little bluebirds illustrated on them), as if this issue had had something to do with the current circumstances. And Buzz was in his distraction flapping the lid of his wrist communicator back and forth. Although XR had made notices about this already somewhat a gazillion times, the Captain was not aware of his irritating panicky routine.

"Blast! Why won't they start already?" he slapped his cheek and turned again to play with the comlink lid.

"It's up to Commander Nebula... ehe heh... he'll give the signal and then you lead the star cruisers closer the operation area. Eheh... by the way, I'm going to buy a new TV-table that matches well with the curtains. I have some bright-pink paint still in the garage; I could repair one myself, if there was one for example in some flea market..."

"Cut it out, Princess... Are you gonna decorate your home like some Barbie house? And now in the middle of the week's event?" XR shook his head.

"Uh-eh... sorry... I guess I'm just a bit... umm... nervous. Umm... and on second thought, pink is maybe hmm... not the right color after all."

During that time, Booster had already chewed his glove fingers broken. Now he was baffled turning over his hands, beeping to Buzz, "Umm... I think I need a new space suit... is there umm... a spare one in the cargo area?"

"Blast... you guys are impossible. Go to change, ranger Munchapper, you can't enter space with a broken uniform. It'll leak."  

"And will ya Cap stop the flip-flap flip-flap flip-flap flip-flap? Gaah, I'm going nutso! AARRGGHH!" XR pretended that he had some kind of lunatic attack. He began rolling around the cockpit, and was finally arrested by Mira, who also promised to quit the rambling about her pinkish furnishing if the insane robot would quit his idiocies.

And in the middle of this bustle, Commander Nebula's snappy voice awakened them. His face flickered in the comlink's vid screen.

"Alright, troops! Be prepared to the activation! You'll lead now the star cruisers into the formation. The energy ray will be blasted in five minutes UGT! Over and out!"

"Yes, Sir!"

42 switched on its engines and gave a depart call to the rest of the ships. The LGM's were driving the one where the blaster was. From their spots, the vessels quickly flew in a circle-formation around the spooky obscure object. The count until zero was started.

_"Fifteen... fourteen... thirteen..."_ a whiny LGM voice announced through a com channel that reached every single spacecraft.

"Thirteen! It's thirteen! Aaaghhh..." XR went nuts with superstition in 42.

"The pathetic lack-wits and puny worms of the Alliance shall regret this..." Zurg cursed under his breath in his ship. "I shall not conclude this with a glorious Jim-kraken-dandy."

_"Ten... nine..."_

"This will be a giant leap for the mankind!" a flock of Alliance Senators praised in their conveyances.

"Tadadaa tattaatta... two, one, zero, kaboom! Capital Planet turns into a black hole!" Warp's skeptical sarcasms filled his transport.

_"Five..." _

"The truth is out there..."

_"One... Zero."_

At the very instant a green dwarf pressed an oversized red button on his console. The energy blaster device, that mainly resembled a big spray can, began to live. As no sonic waves could be head in the cold vacuum, the whole dinosaurs-sized action was jarringly quiet.

Everyone gasped in unison as the thingamajig produced the refreshening shower for the inanimate dollop. A green pulse of monochromatic light reached it... and then complete stillness for a few seconds. At first the thing only shimmered its oddities, as if it was charging itself somehow. Then... swoosh! In a fraction of time all the carved, complex grooves on its surface turned to canalize the power it was given. The view was something superiorly awe-inspiring and beautiful. Every single scratch and figure on it shone bluish electronic light, as if an enormous amount of fireworks would have been shot in the sky at the same time. And if sound waves would have behaved like the electromagnetic ones, surely there would have been heard hollow rumble, as the globule tardily began opening up its inners.

Initially, there was a split, like someone had cut a plum into six separate parts vertically. The joint grooves turned to shine purple light instead of the blue that was still decorating the rest of the surface.

"Ahhgahaahaa, purple! Jim-kraken-dandy!" Zurg whooped in his ship for a picosecond, then turned back to sulk the ignorance the Galactic Alliance had divulged towards him.

Then after the violet rays of electromagnetic specter had fainted a little, the organic lump began to resemble some giant insect that was straightening its six, huge legs. Slowly the six parts separated from each other, and it became visible how they were connected to each other like some choker. But their shape was far away from pearls or jewels, mainly someone might have described them to be rotten bananas, since they were ebony and arched.

Every crawling, flying, creeping, and trotting life form in the audience held their breaths. Buzz' fingers sweated, as he kept a shaking hand above a button that would send a common defense station call to all the star cruisers. Anything could be expected now to happen. It had come true that the oddity really _could be_ activated, it really worked. But what if the LGM's had assumed wrong? What if it would annihilate the whole solar system instead of opening some kind of portal into the wide unknown? And what then...? What would happen then?

Piecemeal the device began to resemble a honeycomb. The legs had subsided in the shape of a perfect hexagon, which was yet having the roundish figure. And then... more taciturnity. The space ghost stopped its spooking and just jutted there, staring hollowly at the spectators.

Ten minutes went forwards. Some impatience was observed among the ships. The device only stood there as an enormous hole, the stars glaring through it.

"What's that blasted idiot just standing there?" Buzz creaked his teeth jittery. "Now do something so we get this scorching waiting to end!"

"Umm... Buzz, that's a machine. I think... it can't hear you", Booster noted shyly.

"Buzz Lightyear is always sure!" the man snapped in his thoughts, but then in a way awoke. "Uh, sorry, Booster... I... I guess I'm just nervous because of this tension."

"Hmm... maybe it's recharging something", Mira understood.

"Yup, it needs to put its loose screws in places, change the waste oil, go to the annual vehicle inspection..." XR count with his fingers.

"I think there's something..." Buzz had the time to utter, until his answer was like in a bolt replied. A blinding flash filled the ether, and the near space turned to bathe in purple light. The force of this pulse was so forceful, that Team Lightyear and the rest of the population around them saw only crackling and hissing smolders in their fields of vision. As gradually the intelligent creatures were able to recover from the shock, they noticed the change the dimension opener had done to itself. Inside it, instead of the hollow gap, was a vibrating a field of this purple something. That sphere looked like it would be an abyss into something, so deep it was in the regard of a random witness. Not a soul in this galaxy yet was comprehensively aware of what that blazing iris actually was. Maybe it was a portal, a gate, a door to worlds of mysteries, maybe not...

Hundreds of pairs, triplets and other multiple numbers of eye organs gawped at the result of the operation. B.L.U.F.F. X-1014 was now even larger than Star Command HQ. As though, it had in a way gathered more size in the activation process. Obviously the energy pulse it had swallowed, had let its peculiar organic structure create more mass for it.

However, the politicians and nobility hoorayed like little kids in a circus show. They had gotten their candy bar, the large and dangerous activation seemed to have gotten a successful conclusion.

Commander Nebula, who had literally sucked his big moustache during all this time, barked now via the comlink to the LGM's to shut down the device.

"Now push the 'switch off' button! You can re-activate it any time you want. The play is over and I don't want that wreck goggling me through my office window like some cratery Cyclops!"

But now the little aliens faced a problem the size of a brontosaur. "Oo... umm... we actually can't do that".

"What do you mean you can't do that? Craters, just shut it down!"

"Umm... oo... we d-don't know how to do that."

This was the end of sentence. As Zeb ghastly comprehended that this _thing_ would stay on, he flopped down nearly paralyzed into his seat. "Sweet mother of Shangri-La... what have they done, what have they done, what have they done..." he monotonically repeated.

"Eee... oo... but we can find a way to that, that's sure!" someone wheezed through the open com channel.

Indeed, it had not come to anyone's mind this far, that there should have been a means for de-activation, too. The LGM's had spoken about off-switching, but had badly forgotten to develop a trick for that. For the politicians only the opening had been important and so in their hastiness they had left behind this once crucial detail too. As always, those noble men wanted to listen to only themselves, their own benefits.

As the old Zeb still lounged fully perplexed in his commander chair, another private call arrived to him.

"This is Senator Ämpäri, the supervising leader of project B.L.U.F.F. X-1014." A dry and snappy voice brought Nebula into the real world. "You will now start to prepare sending the first explorers in."

"_In?_ What? Where? _Inside that warp?_ This dratted mess is all your fault, I'm not sending anybody in there! This machine needs to be shut down and now! People have a really bad feeling that this may become a catastrophe!" the Commander roared back.

"May I mention that I am a senator and I can apply the Parliament to vote for a new commander", Ämpäri carped.

"Star Command is MY creation, by blazes and their buckets! I order here!"

"Unfortunately the Alliance Laws have changed since you were hmm... having your summit. And what comes to your and your minions' so called ranger instinct... we do not consider such abracadabra here in the Parliament. You will start the preparations, and you can keep your Star Command."

This was merely a day of doom for Nebula. He had possibly not ever experienced such shocks at the same time as today. Not even the day when the comatose Zurg was brought from Planet Z and certain identities were revealed.

"Alright, alright, Mr. Ämpäri... You can have your exploring."

And thus the court of the blazing pupil little by little scattered away in their directions. The portal would have 24-hour UGT guarding, and by tomorrow, a group of space rangers with special gear would be sent to examine it closer... and maybe dive into those abysses of the purple, strange mouth.

With atrabilious minds Buzz, Zurg and rest of the chums returned to their homes. Team Lightyear got a quick command to join the first pioneers that would go and touch the infinity. So, the next day would maybe show a path to the future...      

---------------------

According to Albert Einstein, time is relevant. Thus everything that depends on time is equally relevant. Another observer in another place senses the happenings differently. However, very far away from our Galaxy, so far that the imagination hardly can figure out the distances, something was faintly frizzling in somewhere dark. No light was there to illuminate the scene, almost only noises could be heard. Sizzling, blending with something that storm-tossedly squelched. Something seemed to approach the target that was keeping that demure crackling. That something then again kept the noise similar to a swash of a plastic bag full of water.

_"Blrmbf tryyh grmbloff Blorrff blubbff titityy uiiks!"_ another mumble was mixed up with the cacophony.

_"Brrlp, Glxblt! Kruiik kruiik brofflghtmh blraah uaah skviik kopoot kopoot kotkot kotiit!"_ came a reply to the previous splutter.

Let us take a small time machine and return to the moment a few seconds earlier. Or simply, let us take a quick flight to a few light seconds farther from the place, and we see the happening again, as if they would be freshly noveau occurrences. Also, a universal translator might come in handy, since the slosh that will be heard, will sound quite much more understandable if we can hear it in clear English. Hence, let us repeat the previously posed lines with translations.

"Lieutenant Blorrff! Important news, a _blubbff_ has given a signal!"

"Indeed, officer Glxblt! That cannot be a wrong sign. Something, somewhere has activated a transferring port."

As the conversation has turned understandable, let us listen to it further. However, light cannot be provided to illuminate the stage. In this murkiness, it was hot and humid, nearly suffocating. It above all resembled a somber sauna, where the bathhouse oven had just been thrown full of water, and the steaming hot stones on it had evaporated it all in the air. Movement could be sensed, the air churned impalpably. Indeed, it was a room of some kind, where the dialogue was gone through. If a person could have touched the walls of the space, he would have soon drawn his hand away in disgust. The structures of the chamber would feel soft, rather like starchyish plastic foil under his fingertips, yet perspiring and a bit glutinous. They did bend, but not too much.

"Activate the searcher, Lieutenant Blorrff. It's important to see, where the target is, from where the signal is coming." More speech was audible.

"Yes, Sir!" A whirr followed, when some kind of small machine was switched on. This time, a very frail glow of bluish light could be seen in a corner of the same space. There was enough of it to reveal a console table of some kind. Although in this case it did not much resemble those tables, to which the residents of the Milky Way had used. It was not a classic comfortable wooden one with four legs, but merely bore likeliness to a hunch of jelly shaped in the form of a giant pie.

"The searcher says it is coming from a distant _glompsf__,_ from sector _glaa__-barf bbb-wzz_."

"_Glaa__-barf?_ Lieutenant Blorrff, but hasn't that distance been passed a long, long time ago? There was supposed to be no life there."

"The searcher has not ever done errors, Officer Glxblt. Maybe there has been life in that _glompsf_already some time ago, but not intelligent enough to be able to understand things of higher kind."

"We shall take a careful study on this matter, before we announce this to the Superior."

"Indeed! He will be very content if the signal is authentic. In a long time, there has been no new biospheres for us."

"Or new slaves to take."  

...to be continued... Feedback is welcome. 


	5. Stepping in

"What is it?"

"I... I'm not sure... It's like light, but it streams like water, I... I can feel it pinching my skin a little under my glove..." An unsure voice inside a bubble helmet answered to an inquiry coming via comlink. A man's hand, covered with a white gauntlet, was fumbling purple ether that formed tiny turbulent flows and glowed strange light. The set of fingers moved back and forth in that radiance, observing, assuring, marveling.

"It... it doesn't seem dangerous."

"Can you feel any heat, coldness, relevant?"

"Heh, well craters, I don't think I could feel those things through a vacuum-resistant space suit quite well unless was walking in a macula." The manly voice turned amused.

"Blast, you're right, Buzz!" The person with the space mitten received a little guffaw through the com channel. "But do you think it would be safe to dive in?"

"Hmm... not sure." Lightyear crumpled his black brows. "This tickling is a bit strange."

"It can due to the small energy discharges that are emitted from the floating hmm... _thing_. Sorry, but the physicians have not yet picked up a word for that phenomenon." A female tone crackled there now instead of Zeb Nebula's gruff old sonus. However, the Commander's one was soon heard in the form of a painful yelp.

"Aah-ouch! Auuugh! Craters!"   

"Ay'noh! No! Don't pull his moustache!" the female spoke again, although with a scolding emphasis. "I'm sorry, Commander, she's just impossible. Now, Ay'noh, this is the last time Mommy mentions about this."

"What's happening there?" Buzz gave a chuckle, "Mrs. Darkmatter? What are you folks doing there? Wasn't this supposed to be a _strict, Alliance-supervised operation_, as you told me?"

"Who ever gets rid of the gang that nowadays buzzes around you, Buzz? Your whole family is here, watching how the _first entering_ is done. Although your Father is not on the best mood. He's sulking in the corner and you know why", Zeb sneered.

"Daddy is still mad because he couldn't come with us?" Buzz raised his brows. Although, if he had been in the same situation, he would have probably needed a round, padded room for his volcano eruption. The journey to the dark side had unfortunately left its grooves in Buzz Lightyear. Although _tha-grydda_ had healed him up almost wholly, his temper had turned rasher, and he occasionally got same kind of huffs as Zurg. Neither had Z. Z. Lightyear been such a blusterer in his youth, as he was nowadays. It was the dark side, it vandalized badly its offerings, withering away the seeds and sprouts of patience and empathy. The poor one who ended up glued in its cobwebs, was forced to release his anger, and muffle everything else under it. Well, this feature that had also attacked Buzz, unfortunately gave him currently a spice of less nicer aspects. Yet, he tried to keep up patience. But of course the main thing was, that he had escaped the dark dungeons of evilness. Indeed the reformation had not been a piece of impedance for neither of them, but the randomness of fortune had given once some tail-wind.

"But wasn't Senator Ämpäri supposed to be there with you?" the Captain had shifted the topic. "And didn't he before all order that umm... no _unauthorized persons_ can be present?"

Zeb's strain turned a bit uneasy, as if he was trying to hide something behind his tongue. This time namely Lightyear could not see his face; he was palpating with his employer through the ranger uniform's inner radio link. Buzz needed his hands elsewhere, and what idea would there have been attempting to use wrist communicator in vacuum? In any case, the Commander was now playing some mumble game back at Star Command.

"He... he is not here. Senator Ämpäri got a... an unexpected, quick illness. He couldn't come. So now I'm the only one to say who are _authorized persons_." Indeed, the old man's conscience played a trombone waltz in a false note. Yesterday evening, when he had been on an official dinner at one of Capital Planet's fine restaurants, he had made his revenge on Senator Ämpäri. Into this event were gathered politicians and other Alliance's important officers. Nonetheless, after being mocked, being threatened with a payoff and being made a real dummy in front of Madame President, Nebula had deceitfully smuggled a bottle of castor oil into the incident. Without noticing, the old, crafty ranger had crept in the kitchen, and spilled almost the whole portion of that nasty liquid to compensate the gravy of this Senator's banquet. And with a good appetite, Ämpäri had munched the delicious _canard en vin_, and almost licked the plate for conclusion. It must have tasted truly awesome... Zeb Nebula knew very well that plotting avenge might lead to the dark side, as fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Although he had the whole day endeavored to bask with an innocent face, the little inner remainder did not shut up.

Nevertheless, at the moment he was leading the entering operation inside the mysterious portal. He supervised the mission at Star Command, a flock of LGM's as his assistants taking care of all the research machinery. As it was mentioned, there were external persons present. At least with that nickname could be called Ay'noh Darkmatter, whom Zarah had kept in her arms while standing quite close to Zeb. It had been a temptation too beguiling for the wee lass to stretch her arm and take a good grip of that long, grey, interesting moustache of the old man. This little episode explained his sudden groans.

And then there were the other invaders. Warp had been banished in the corner to read a magazine. He had caused already two small mushroom clouds while he without permission had started to 'scrutinize' some of the LGM's chemistry implements. And then there was Zurg sitting in another alcove. He kept all the time a low snarl on, browns wrinkled and his whole big appearance moping. And peace was not in sight. When Zarah had left her daughter march a bit on the floor, the scion was after a few seconds teasing some LGM's. The girl noticed that the antennas in their heads were even more intriguing than whiskers or hair. For her age, Ay'noh was more grown than plain humans in relevant time of life. As some human toddlers took their initial steps only around the first year, this girl with her strange DNA-combination was full in action and running around the control central. Until this day not a soul knew what on Tellus was crammed in Warp's cells. So it could not be determined clearly what race the minor Darkmatter was actually. Nevertheless, whatever her chromosome tangle then was, she was going to get a stern lecture from her mother, as she was spotted clinging from one LGM's antenna.

At the porter of the blazing purple space eye was hovering Team Lightyear with a couple of other rangers. Commander Nebula was not yet absolutely sure, whether to give the behest to worm inside that bizarre hole or not. Actually, a little probe droid had been sent in already in order to shake hands artificially with the possible life forms that would be creeping behind that violet, turbulent warp. But as the monitoring results had achieved Star Command, they had given only something blurry and white back. Nebula had concluded that the rusty LGM wreck was ultimately broken, and was now sucking the syllables of the depart call. What would be behind there? He was sending his finest and bravest rangers to enter the mouth of that dragon? Or... was it so that something or _someone_ behind there had made smithereens out of the inside-sent widget? Unanswered questions were fighting to get out of everybody's throats. But as the minds were confused, the sentences did not gush out so easily.

"Sir, do you copy? Should we go in?" Buzz' unsure query reached Zeb.

"I... I don't really know. But Mr. Ämpäri will probably put both of us to work in the kilometer factory, if we won't go through this operation."

"I'm ready to go, Sir! To infinity and beyond! Although my ranger instinct..."

"Yes, Buzz, that's what I mean. Your ranger instinct. But I think you have to go to infinity and beyond."

"Do we step in?"

"Yes."

Biting lightly his lower lip, Lightyear decided to take the action in his hands. His psyche was very foggy concerning the leap into unknown. Where was the probe droid? What would that energy sphere cause to his frail cell structure? Robots were always robots, they could go through almost everything. That had been seen in the case of XR. The sarcastic android was rebuilt and rebuilt already maybe a trillion times.

"Alright, troops! Let's go." The man still waved his hand to Mira and others. "To infinity and beyond!"

"Aw, cap! Can't you ever get rid of that cliché? I think that was the first linguistic expression I ever learned and I have to listen to it to infinity and beyond?" XR muttered.

"Now don't complain there, we are commanded to go!" ex-Zenith barked.        

Dressed in especially durable terillium suits, the rest of the team floated closer the radiating orb. The leading captain gave a common signal, and all of them activated their jetpacks. Lasers ready for safety, they vanished into the obscurity. A dive into the dark waters had begun.

Sweat flooded along the neck of Nebula, as he in vain tried to get an answer to his repeated inquiries. At least twenty minutes had passed, and none of the in-vanished group members had given a pip. Back at Star Command HQ, every intelligent being had gathered at the same monitor where the Commander was standing.

"Where did you doom poor Buzzy Boy to go? Quasars! I shall go after him right now!" And so Warp had to try to hinder the yelling and bellowing Zurg not to rush out in space without a vacuum-persistent uniform.

"Coming, Team Lightyear? This is Commander Nebula speaking! Coming, ranger Lightyear? Coming, ranger Nova?" the desperate Zeb spattered his calls.

"Quasars! What could've happened there? The stupid knickknacks of those green satellite transmitters keeps spitting out that white snowstorm, but nothing else!" Darkmatter bawled as well.

"Buzzy boy, are you there?" Zurg snatched the microphone from Nebula's hand, shrieking in it. "Quasars, you shall answer now! Aggh, quasars! The darkness has swallowed them all! The whirlpools of evilness have devoured my flesh and blood! Grraaghh! Uaargghhh!" Zora began to freak out.

_"Dad?__ What are you roaring there?"_ suddenly a crackling reply came through the amplifier.

"It's Buzz!" Nearly everyone in the control room rushed back at the monitoring console, some of them hitting their sculls against each other's ones. The people over there had been a bit scattered for a few seconds ago, due to various reasons.

"Ouch, ouch!"

"Usch!" some pain cries were heard. But when Zeb had survived from the minimal concussions, he took the link back.

"Buzz! Thank goodness you're all right! We couldn't get the transmissions to work at all! What's going on there? Where are you? Tell me everything!" the old commander shed his words like a fountain would have belched out water.

"Calm down, Sir!" Lightyear gave a chuckle. "We're all in condition. And actually, we don't have much to tell."

"W-What do you mean?" a puff followed.

"Umm Sir, it's a bit _peculiar_ here." Mira spoke now instead, "It's... it's _nothing_ here. Completely nothing."

Now Nebula went perplexed. What was this talk? Of course there was supposed to be something. If B.L.U.F.F. X-1014 was a gate to other worlds, of course there needed to be a world behind it.

"How would we describe this..." Nova began again, "It's just white. Like a big, white room that continues and continues. There's no horizon or anything, nothing but this white emptiness."

"It's like... an empty dimension", Buzz announced.

"Hmh... but of course there has to be _something_. Are you walking on something?" Zeb pouted.

"No, nothing. We're just floating here. Just like ranger Nova said, this is like a big white room with no walls or floor or ceiling. Plain white."

Back at Star Command Zurg had begun his sulking again. Certainly, he was happy to hear that his son was all right, but the fact that the eternity beyond there was not _purple_, was a big drawback to him.

"So the probe droid is not a landfill jar after all, eh?" Darkmatter watched again the little screen showing the visual transmission coming from that extraneous dimension.

"Oh, by the way, can you reach the robot we sent in?" Zeb uttered to the comlink.

"I'm right here, pop! Ready to come out and keep a press conference about our successful mission! I have even waxed my metallic suit to be representative!" XR's line came through.

"No, not you!" Nebula snorted, "The _other_ robot."

"Sure, Sir! It's right here, hovering a few meters away from us", someone else spoke.

"Alright, troops! You can come out... by the way, _can you come out_? Oh craters, if that is not possible, I..." Nebula abruptly began to rip his whiskers. Again another detail that no one had thought about. How to come out.

"Sure, Sir! I believe it's possible, alright." Buzz tried to soothe the panicky ranger through the open channel. "The portal is visible here as a big purple circle, and we just step back through it."

"Craters. Then come back immediately and take the droid with you."

"What? Were you going to leave me here originally? Aargh! Waaa!" XR's stupidities were there again bothering Nebula.

"Well of my point of view, you could very well spend the rest of your days there", came a bark back.

Thus the group of valiant space rangers bobbed up from the mysteries, leaving the whiteness behind and entering again the familiar galaxy.      

-------------------------

A few weeks went by irritatingly slowly. New expeditions into the great white open were made, with no remarkable results. Even star cruisers were sent in, and hundreds of kilometers were combed through. Nothing else but that continuous whiteness was found. No radiation was around (except some very weak cosmic radiation), no formations of normal matter, antimatter, or even dark matter were discovered. The scientists built a theory that the gate indeed opened up a warp into something, but it could not somehow provide an output to the normal four-dimensional space. It was as if someone had unlocked a door into a corridor that leaded to a cul-de-sac.

And Commander Nebula had his worries making his chest feel like filled with big granite stones. The LGM's had not invented any means to shut down _B.L.U.F.F. X-1014_.  They had tried new energy blastings, and nothing. The stubborn hexagon only ate the energy it was given, and started glowing even more flaring. Acrimonious vid-phone sessions were gone through with Zeb and Senator Ämpäri. The disappointed politician wanted profits. And when there was nothing to pass him, he became snappier and more brusque as the minutes jogged forwards. In addition, guarding and watching constantly the space finding required quite much Star Command's resources. Star Cruisers and rangers would have needed elsewhere ensuring Alliance's peace. There were the Raenoks, the Gargantians, the Trade World smugglers and gangsters, Lord Angstrom and his rebels, a zillion of other targets to keep an eye on. Although the greatest foe of the Galactic Alliance had fallen -namely Zurg's Empire- there were always casting defects in the long intergalactic iron bar.

------

It was a serene day at Star Command HQ. The shimmering honeycomb had become an every-day issue for the space rangers, and they did not quite much care about it any more. Buzz and his team had their coffee break time. He and a flock of his chums were sitting at the common cafeteria, sipping at their drinks and having little snacks. Although when talking about Booster, it could not be talked about 'little snacks'. He had some kind of gigantic doughnut, which was almost the size of a car tire. The Jo-Adian happily dipped it in his bucket-sized coffee cup every other minute.

"You know what, big guy? You're gonna get stuck forever in the launch tubes, if you won't quit munching that stuff. Munch munch Munchapper." XR drummed fed-up his fingers to the surface of the diner table.

"Umm... Buzz? I was popping in your office and getting some archive files when your father called." Mira took a gulp of her drink and turned to Lightyear.

"What did he have to say? Wasn't he supposed to be in Trade World arranging the concert of Bonk Bonk Clonk Emcees? They should come to _The Black Hole _this weekend..."

"Yeah, but he asked me to tell you that he came back. He said he was going to Warp's place, Darkmatter has some guests visiting Capital Planet. Some Mrs. Adlene and other folks. Don't remember the names. Oh yeah, and umm... your father told to ask if you had found yourself a... umm... girlfriend." Nova went ill at ease after uttering the last letters.

As a result, Buzz went crimson red. He breathed rapidly in and out, and apparently was about to burst. "Oh, craters, AGAIN? Why does he have to start hollering about my private things to EVERYONE? Why can't he just leave that topic alone?"

"Hey, cap, why won't you let me help, I..." XR took a wide smile. However, he was interrupted as something peculiar happened utterly unexpectedly. In a bolt, all the lamps of the cafeteria powered out. It would have become pitch black, unless the phosphorescence of the Star Command uniforms had not provided faint illumination.

"What's going on?" Mira glanced around.

"Hmm... maybe they just have a power failure here", Buzz replied, but still stood up. So had all the other persons in the diner also quit their ruminating and began to stir around the room.

"But that's nearly impossible that Star Command's power would go out just like this. They got a huge amount of spare crystallic fusion generators, and nowadays even landanah energy generators in the machinery room!" the Princess pointed out.

"Apparently someone has not paid the electricity bill, then." XR tried to be funny, getting the usual eye rolls as his prize.

"This is starting to be too odd. Let's go to check out what happens elsewhere." Lightyear stomped towards the entrance. The mecha took a floodlight out of his inners and made the headway clearer with it.

Indeed, everything was not right now. Fifteen minutes had passed. The corridors of Star Command were also dark, and it indicated that even the elevators to the lower floors did not work.

"Ack, do we really have to use such stone-aged technology as _stairs_?" XR beefed when the team had to find somehow their steps to Commander Nebula's office.

"Now blast, don't complain there. Be happy that even _you_ do work." Buzz exhaled annoyed. "This is definitely odd. If it was only a little power cut, all the functions should be back in shape already."

Suddenly Buzz' wrist communicator beeped angrily. "Hmm... at least this is OK." However, the ranger was a bit astonished seeing Warp's face in the little screen instead of Nebula's one. Usually this blue friend did not contact him this way, but only under the emergency situations.

"Hey, Lightweight! Have you guys blown up an atom bomb up there or what?" the alien snorted via the comlink.

"What? I truly hope you're not kidding now, Darkmatter. I..."

"Woul' I be calling your left arm if I would only want to say hello? Hello, anyone home? We got it tricky here on Capital Planet. The much I can see forwards from my garden, everything's black until the horizon. Folks are cursing on the streets 'cause their Rolls-Royces won't work. What have you folks done there, unplugged the big electric plug?"

"What... what do you mean? You mean the powers are off there too?" Lightyear's hackles rose up.

"Too and too. Only some of my tootsie's widgets work. And of course the torch crystals. But that's it, kaput. Wonder how this channel is open. So woul' ya tell me what you folks have been goofing up there?"

"Nothing! The powers are off here, too! We're just entering Nebula's office..."

But that ended Buzz' statement. The target of discussion came himself to them, limping out of the darkness. It could be read from his old face, that his mind was under heavy confuse and dubiousness.

"Buzz! Sweet mother of Venus, good that I found you! Blast, why are you keeping your com channel in the use of something else?"

"Uh, sorry, Sir! I didn't notice the parallel link was trying to get a multiconnection. I'm talking to Warp, he says everything seems to be out of power on his district on Capital Planet." 

"Well blast, guess what? Folks up there on the launch bay cannot get a single star cruiser work. Nothing works! What the blazars and their zippers is going on here? What is sucking the powers even out of _space ships_?"

Right at the moment, everyone startled to the hollo of Mira. She came running from behind a corner, flinging with her arms. She had an aghast expression making her eyes as wide as washbasins. "Everyone! Come to see this!"

"What is it, ranger?" Buzz and Zeb yelped in unison.

"Here! I noticed some strange glow coming from the side corridor and decided to take a look what it is." Mira rushed ahead of everyone, and leaded them to the passage that went along the hull of Star Command's big base. It had windows on the other wall giving a view of the surrounding planets and suns. Nevertheless, now the whole hallway was bathing in purple light. And this phenomenon was coming from outside.

"Look! Look at the _gate_!" the Princess panted.

"Oh, Craters..." Buzz had the time to gasp. The hexagon floating there in the silent space fulminated like an erupting volcano. It had grown wider than it had been before, and the abyss inside it looked deeper than ever. But the light it emitted, was maybe a million times more powerful than the usual beams. The eerie purple ether filled the whole near space, while the portal raved as if fierce demons would have possessed it.

...to be continued...


	6. The nightmare begins

Team Lightyear and Commander Nebula had as though changed into wooden dolls, being able only to stand rigid and fix their gazes on the flaming orb. Since its opening, the portal had stood quiet... had it gotten fed up with the apathy and decided to start a war? But this device was not supposed to be a living creature... consequently a sudden nodus waited for a solution.

Zeb was thrown violently back to the reality, as he heard his comlink snapping. A mayday-plea moaned in the panicky atmosphere, telling that several space rangers tried to get in Star Command, but the main airlocks refused to work. Those particular poor ones were the guardians from the hexagon's foreyard. They were forced to leave their vessels after the engines had died, and fly with jetpacks back to the headquarters.

"Come on! I need your help!" the Commander grunted, beginning to hobble burdensomely towards the manual spare exits. He had ordered the jumpy aliens out there to approach those emergency entrances, so that he and his companion could crank the locks open from inside. Nevertheless, Nebula's one-leg wandering was so toilsome that Mira suggested they would use their jets for inside-traveling. And by that means, the distances were cut away.

"But who's keeping an eye on the portal, now?" Buzz became anxious in the middle of the flight.

"Craters, that stinky bucket-brain Ämpäri can himself guard it for eternities!" the old man roared, "He caused this all, and it's his responsibility. We need to get those rangers in now, before that dratted bagel decides to explode, or something! And, by the way, put your visors on."

At the airlocks, Booster took a good grip of the steering-wheel-looking manual openers. With a loud creak, the hefty doors were pulled aside, and those outside shivering were helped in. Those aliens in various-sized ranger uniforms explained in unison something messy that how B.L.U.F.F. X-1014 had began its devilish behavior.

"You go in and have some rest. We're trying to figure out the happ..." Zeb began, but came to cast his eyes on the half-aperture door. It was situated so that it allowed a sideways-view to the near Capital space, right towards the mentioned oddity. As previously, Zeb abruptly resembled that kind of puppet-show dummy again.

"What's the matt..." Buzz tapped to him, facing right the equal janet. Namely, the dimension opener did not just abide by flashing Zurg's favorite color, but evidently, there was something coming _out_ of it. Slowly, irritatingly creeping, something white-grayish thrusted its way outwards, at the same time pushing aside the alone-floating Star Command vessels like abandoned shoes. In addition, the magnitude of this invasion was not quite petite. The spook that was now halfway inside The Alliance, was as large as the Headquarters dam ship itself. As said, the organic hoop had broadened when it had sucked in more energy. And as this cocoon-shaped opaque phantasm had crammed itself out, there was already the snout of the next one peeping out from the purple turbulence.

Minutes passed, and the aghast rangers still jutted in the open airlock like kids listening to ghost stories. As if they had grown roots, they could not shift their legs, nor turn their gawps away. More and more those lumps, that were apparently space ships, were hurled out. Five, six, seven... soon the numbers would end. They shortly filled the whole near space with their deterrent silhouettes, the purple flow gleaming in their surfaces, revealing the complex carvings and decorations on them. They were the siblings of the Gate, from the same distant universe. And their multiplying forces did not appear very appealing.

Enough was this not at all. A split appeared to four of those pupae, under their bellies. They clicked open like giant jaws, barfing an immense amount of smaller, alike beans, out of them. Now at least the digits ended. They minor ones arranged themselves into two formations, the other one directing its course towards Capital Planet, and the second one... heading straight to surround Star Command.

At this instant Team Lightyear revived from its jolt. Yet, they were somewhat slumbering still, as they stumbled to each other's legs, while attempting to set up a drill. From the floor, where Buzz had fallen on his stomach, he hollered to Munchapper, "Quick! Close the door and NOW!"

"Alarm, space rangers of Star Command! An unknown invasion through the dimension portal has started! Put your defenses ready, what you still can do! There is no evidence whether the phenomenon is hostile or not", Zeb yapped to the common multichannel of his wrist communicator. Every life form in the base hearkened, and understood that this was a real red alert.   

But the arcane had its own means to propagate. Gliding on, an army of those smaller cocoons was soon playing a ring game with the Universe Protection ship. The uncanny climate endured, as their behavior was scrutinized. Those capsules had no visible doors, no windows, nothing but that white, opaque outlining. No jet fire was coming out of them, as they slid themselves forwards. Somehow they then again found their steps to the real doorways of Star Command, those entrances that were supposed to be out of life. While a flock of them were left to besiege their target, some others shot a purple energy shower towards the main access. Like pulled by magnets, the heavy star cruiser air locks were pried open, twisting themselves towards the pupae. And so ten gremlins sleeked in, closing the metallic hatches furthermore behind them. They were bigger than common star cruisers, so whatever was in them, could be a lot of something...

At the launch bay the skies were dark and tensed. Landing on the deck, those naves occupied the whole floor available. And if the Headquarters was blockaded, so did the vastly puzzled space rangers beleaguer those cans as a crowd. Also Team Lightyear was present in one corner. Booster shook with fear, XR stretched his extendable legs to see over the taller population. Lightyear slammed nervously the lid of his wrist communicator back and forth, whereas Mira somehow associated the talk about her living-room curtains to this occasion.

"Umm Buzz, what's happening?" the Jo-Adian pointed at the cocoons. They had rest on the deck for a few minutes absolutely immovable, but now they had begun to unfold. Into the main ends, that were aiming at the space police, grew a split dividing into six parts. And so the opening process went on, like a real de-pupating. Nonetheless, beautiful butterflies did not glitter forth, but something far else. At first, squashing splashes were heard. A loud murmur went through the gathering.

_"Blurbarah pulputi pulpsis grmbloff Blorrff umppahpah uffaffaa grrlaabatryyt!"_ a hollow gargle was shouted from the opening organic vessel. Something that looked like a horse-sized, paunchy, grayish jelly lob wriggled out along an elastic ramp that had been tossed out of the slit. The creature was partly transparent, partly there were big soft scales growing on it. Its form was quite unsteady, it seemed to widen from the other side and then again reduce its size from the other side while it walked -or crept- forwards. It had no visible eyes, and instead of a mouth it had some kind of slimyish trunk. It also had some kind of extensions that looked distantly like hands, at least it was seemingly holding some kind of harder object in the other one.

"Now was that a welcome speech? It sounded moreover like someone had taken mud baths among a pack of pigs." XR raised an amazed brow.

"Shht now, XR!" Buzz commanded. "Let's see what happens. Although... I don't like this at all. Something tells me that they're not putting up a white flag."

Tens of more of those slime blobs appeared out of their transports. Commander Nebula carefully stomped to the middle floor. As the leader of Star Command he needed to be the first one either to shake hands, or to receive a war threat.

"Grrlp!" one of those aliens gurgled again. From a nearby ship appeared two more, who brought along some kind of trembling, perspiring ball. It had lobes, and soft button-like appendages in it. After a tentacle had pushed it, the next sentences of the leading blob echoed out in clear and loud English. This widget was a universal translator that came indeed in handy.

"Greetings, citizens of _glaa__-barf  bbb-wzz_! You have indicated certain kind of intelligence level since you have been able to activate our _blubbff__._ But, seemingly you are millions of years lacking our capacities and productivity. However, a solution will be found for you."

The crowd back there began whispering to each other. This did not really sound a warm assignment of cooperation and peace. Zeb, who stood now surrounded by several of those unknown aliens, was hard deliberating what to answer.

"Greetings. My only question this far is, that do you come in peace or not?"  he slowly and unsurely uttered.

Something that sounded like crippled laughter, swarmed among the invaders. "Peace for us, and for you... as we said, we can find _a solution_. We haven't in ages found new living quarters, and the habitats we have used, have began to ebb in the means of natural resources. We need new areas for our population. And although you shine with your primitivism, I think you are potential slaves."

A mere shock struck Star Command. Had those jelly hunches mentioned the word _slaves_? So they had not come with nice thoughts and flowers in their hands at all. Taking defense poses, some rangers were full in action to tune their lasers to stun. But as the aliens perceived this with their hidden eye organs, they took a counterblow. With those gadgets some of them carried, they shot liquidized rays towards the gathering. The beams hit one part of the multitude, obviously sucking humidity from the air or relevant, since the liquid became solid, sticky, elastic material. It was thrown upon the rangers like a soap bubble, burying them inside it, and thus capturing them. There the frightened men and women writhed, endeavoring to break the 'walls' of that transparent blister. But they only bent under their touches, whereas laser had no effect on this elastic matter at all.

"We don't want to harm our future servants, do we? They'll got time enough to suffer and wither away in their upcoming works", the translator wheezed.

Commander Nebula clenched his fists anteriorly to this scene. Fury broiled his chest, his eyes blazing frenzy. No one would come to boss around him in his own base! Rushing towards the obvious leader of the intruders -this someone who was known as Lieutenant Blorrff- he yelled, "You won't come here to enslave anyone! Get back to that dratted hole where you crawled from and craters, STAY THERE!" His outraged knuckles got buried in the jellyish head of Blorrff, trying to give him a black eye. But... the slimers were vigilant, too. A purple ray was aimed at Nebula from behind, soon hitting his back, and dumping him on the floor. His conscious was taken away, his limbs cramping hysterically. The missile had affected his nerve system so that he after a few seconds turned completely paralyzed. And there was no sense visible in him at all.

"Oh my goodness, did they _kill_ Commander Nebula?" Mira panted in the corner where the confused Team Lightyear still stood.

"We must stop this madness, now!" Buzz grated his teeth and aimed a deathly frown at the stage. He was about to tap forth, but Mira gripped his arm, whispering, "Buzz, don't! We... We have to find our way out of here while we still can!"

"But... but the whole Star Command is in jeopardy! A diabolic plan has been put up and Zeb may be dead!" he fulminated. But Nova kept pulling him back, while they all caught the next alien slur translated to English.

"May this be a warning to you all. You apes are turning under a new authority starting from this second on!" As a conclusion, the bubble-arresting rays began to sing. The flabbergasted space rangers were one by one finding themselves inside those nasty organic prisons. At this point, even Buzz understood that it was better to chicken out and retreat, although it was a galaxy-sized shame for him.

Team Lightyear took a bolt away from the arena, spurting at the moment in the Headquarters' corridors. There was no aim; it all was sheer improvisation. The Captain would have still wanted to turn back, regretting that he was marathoning away like a wimp absconder.

"Buzz, would you once listen to your team members?" Nova crumpled and pointed at her Captain with a finger. "We can't do precisely anything here. None of us has a plan. We can't defend ourselves, we can't help Nebula, we can't get the powers back here. I suggest we try to get out and... umm..." the blue woman quit shaking his finger and instead brought it on her chin. "Umm... I think we'd need to get to Capital Planet."

"But you just said no one of us has a plan! Are you eating your words, Princess?" XR commented.

"And now, you little sardine jar jar, will you shut your big mouth?" Obviously Mira had lost her temper since she yelled her cake hole wide as the open sky. "Okay, I don't have a plan. But I'm trying to figure out one, if you'd just once give me a change!"

"Okay, so what's the plan?" the robot continued "Are we gonna disguise ourselves as giant pot plants and slither little by little down towards the flight deck, or do we get a lot of jelly from kitchen, plunge in it and pretend to be one of those slime blobs, or are we gonna put all llama suits on, imitate lost llamas and get a free lift to Capital Planet's giant Zoo? Or..."

"Grnrgnrgghh..." Nova clenched her fists, foaming then with 120 decibel's intensity level, "Plan number one: WE MUST BE QUIET! THEY MAY HEAR US!" Next all the present picked their ears to get the tinnitus away.

"Hmm... on the other hand, Ranger Nova, I think you're right. Good thinking, ranger. Then again ranger XR here has not indicated good thinking, because the launch deck is the most dangerous part of Star Command Headquarters right at the moment. Hmph. The Space Ranger manual..."

"There's no TIME to wonder what the manual keeps inside itself!" she threw her arms in the air. "Craters, why do I feel I'm the only one equipped with _brains_ today?" This statement was left to be the secret of her mind, it did not reach Buzz' or anyone else's hearing organs. "Let's face it! The next target those mucus invaders are going to hit their claws... um... slimes on, is Capital Planet. We saw their pods heading there already. We should get out of here, because... umh..." nervousness began to creep along Nova's spine, too. And if she would start to play a stress ball, the last ray of intelligence would vanish. 

The bitter truth was, that no reliable plan was in sight. Although Buzz had had his ranger instinct-cricket chirping twenty-four hours in row, even he could not have forecasted such quick stranger invasion. Thus, the irresolution was the main guest of the day. Either did not Mira know, what sense would there be going to the Alliance Core. This idea ant had just randomly breezed in her mind with a little straw on its back. Indeed, what could a puny pack of space rangers do in an occasion alike? Ditto, no plot, no layout. If they had barely fled those superior and more forceful aliens, what could Buzz and his company do? With ninety-nine percent odds, nothing. Then again, what would they fuss on Capital Planet? Warn Madame President? Go home and hide under the bed? Wait for the end of the world?

"Alright, troops. So we're going to find our way out of here, whatever it then... um... profits", Lightyear announced as irresolute. The cluster had taken an adventitious direction where they had started to retreat. "Craters, I need to find my Dad. Maybe he'd know what to do in a situation like this", he muttered half in the world of ideas. Poor Buzzy Boy had begun to be ill with homesickness? 

"Good idea, Buzz!" the female panted while they whizzed forwards, "Maybe we could um... try to gather our friends around us and umm... oh, nutbunnies! What is this, a bad cliché? Every time when someone is in a difficult distress, not a soul around has an idea how to act!"

"Um... Buzz?" Booster piped, "Why do you think Z-Zurg would know what to do?"

"Ehum... yhhee... I don't know. Humm..." Lightyear replied. "Umh, by the way, where are we going? We're just running without a destination. Ranger Nova, you suggested we are going to flee. But how? Are we going to fly with our jetpacks all the way to Capital Planet?"

"Thh..."

"Thr..."

"What's the matter with you folks? Is the alien ray devolving you too 'cause the intelligibility of your sayings has reduced fifty-one comma seventy-eight percents? Only I hear those 'umm' and 'erm' coming out of your throats." XR sneered in the middle of all the hassle.

"Well, we're all waiting for your brilliant, award-winning save-the-universe-plan!" Nova barked, "Just put your CPU rolling and produce something more waterproof than disguising into a giant yucca palm! Then we follow your directions."

"Erm... umm... ahem..." the mecha pouted, and after all could not come up with anything sensible.

Suddenly a woodpecker began knocking inside Mira's scull. The team had just rushed by a wide refuge chute hatch. She stopped her ongoing, and gesticulated the others to pay attention to her notice.

"I think this might help us out." She pointed at the metallic lid on the wall. The rangers had arrived in some kind of large storage room, where jutted unopened boxes with all kinds of other junk on the floor.

"What? You want us to go and get crunched in the trash compacter? And come out as nice compressed cubes? No way, no way, no way, I rather choose the alien reign than that!" XR nattered.

"Grmghhh..." Steam began coming out of the blue alien's ears. "Look, this chute is not leading to the waste mill. This is some kind of hatch where they throw bigger junk, like broken-gone machines, and pests like you, XR. We might get away unnoticed trough that straight chute! It'll drop us right under Star Command's belly, as you know very well. Usually there's this big recycling ship collecting the stuff that is thrown through this, but of course it won't be there now."

"Yes. Actually, that might work well. Only we need to do, is to take some kind of coverage for us. There are assumingly several hostile ships scanning the environment, and watching for movement", Buzz deliberated, glancing around.

"Turtle..." Nova fingered her chin.

"Umm... I don't think this is the time to think about expensive restaurant food." The Captain looked at her baffled.

"No, no, no. I mean we could use that abandoned big tub as our cover", she brought her finger to present the corner of the room, where was some kind of abandoned LGM invention. It was a green-white bathtub-looking vat, with the cubic meter capacity of a swimming pool. "We could drop it to the refuge chute while we get there too, and then as we have arrived to space, we could travel under it. Like... umm... a turtle with the shelter of its... erm... shell. See, it's so big that even Booster fits under it with us."

"Right... I think we can use small jetpack power under it. So it would only seem that this object has gotten an unusual acceleration when the chute spits it out... We might get to Capital Planet's gravitational field easily with it. Once we have got there, we can abandon it."

"Abandon? And cause it to hit someone's house as an odd meteorite? There has been stupid enough headlines already in the newspapers lately. The newest addition: _'A True Story Told by an Innocent Citizen: "A Bathtub from the Sky Fell down and Crushed My House'."_" The android had again his line.

"XR!" both the humanoid rangers interjected in unison.

"Sniff... I'm never allowed to talk. Fine, I'll be quiet then. The freedom of speech has been declined from me. So after all, the French Revolution was done in vain, since its virtuous results shall be buried in the graveyard of oblivion..." the ludicrous robot snuffled.

Rolling their eyes, the rest of the team members went to grab the spacious cistern. Regardless the size, it was a feather for Booster to carry. The rest set themselves under the object, while Buzz tore up the hatch open. There was just width enough in the gap to fit the basin in. Munchapper supported it from inside, so that it would not collapse on the heads of the smaller beings. And once they had gotten on the threshold of the refuge chute, Lightyear commanded them to jump in.

_"Waaas thiiis suuuch a gooood iiideaaa aaafter aaaall?"_ Mira's squeal echoed in the long pipe, as the space rangers speeded down. It was a complete free fall; the gravitational simulators in Star Command's belly accelerated all the objects to be dropped towards them (and they worked still). So with 9,81 meters per square-second was Team Lightyear's inrush agitated.

_"Weee'll beee dooow sooon, nooo wooorryyyy, weeee wooon't craaaash!"_ Buzz shouted back. 

But, they _did _crash. The two, out-spitting hatches right under them did not open since the movement-observing sensors had gone black. The hit was hard, but gradually the dizzy rangers crawled out from under the tub, lying now on the inner shutter.

"Uh-uh... now what?" Buzz tried to get the little whippoorwills away from spinning around his head.

"Can we cut those doors with lasers and then weld them back again? Haven't we done that before?" Booster suggested.

"Right, ranger. But... we can't solder the outmost one back. Blast, it's dangerous to do it like this, but we can't step back any more", Lightyear nodded.

So the lasers whizzed. With a higher frequency, the alloy was easy to slice. Once the first hatch was loose, the team stepped in to the small airlock space between it and the hindmost one. With rapid movements, the separate scuttle was fastened back to its position.

"Okay, now it goes. Once the second door is loose, we'll get a good acceleration. So let's saw!" Susurrus went on, and snap; the vacuum began to suck the vat and the rangers out. Quite much a whim of luck it was, that the foreigners did not pay attention to the loose lid, and the fleers, which were thrown out with their turtle shell like... well, like litter. The tub ended up flying in space its bottom up (if there can be determined directions in space) against the guarding enemy ships. But, a slight problem was encountered. Someone might see Team Lightyear 'from beneath'.

"Blazars! Why no one came to think about a bedding for this transport?" Buzz cursed. "XR, can you do anything?"

No answer.

"XR! What's the problem with you?" Lightyear was to explode.

"Hmph! I was told to shut up! So I'm staying quiet", a protest was stated.

"XR, don't be stupid. You know right ahead WHAT the situation is! Now obey your commanding officer and cover the bottom! Or you'll end up to the incinerators of those invaders!"

"A-Okay, A-Okay, I'll cover, alrighto, gotcha", the metallic ranger gave up, and took a collapsible dance floor out of his inners. It was just big enough to shade the base, turning the tub into a firm box. Buzz had drilled a little peep hole to the one wall, so that they would not find themselves flying around Planet Z, but would end up to Capital Planet. Activating their jetpacks, the rangers got the peculiar bustle to swoop faster.

However... always there were obstacles along the kilometers. Two pupae patrolling around Star Command had started to speculate what that junk-UFO was.

"Hey, there's a flying trash!" the other ship spoke to the other one via their comlink.

"What a shooting star! Let's play with it a bit! I've been keen on battering something, but the Superior denied it."

"Ha-ha! I guess you can write your own rulebook regarding this one. It's just some dirt that that monkey house just puked out."

"Let's see who hits first!"

Dangerous enough, the two foes were on a playful mood. Strange it was, that they had not studied the tub with their scanners, since that would immediately have revealed the carbon-based life forms cringing inside it. But, sometimes even over-intelligent aliens were careless and stupid. With fast pace, the garbage was approaching Capital Planet's ionosphere, but now the villains' energy rays were striving to blast it to preons.

...To be continued...


	7. Dark harvest

The tub still continued its flurried flight. Buzz encouraged the others to boost up their jetpack speed, so that with the best means they could get out of the enemy-ray shower. Capital Planet's ionosphere was almost achieved, already.

But then it was there. A hit. Yet, not a proper hit, moreover a skim. But so drastic it was, that it felt like a dozen of ion cannon blasts had hurled themselves along the bodies of the space rangers. A flash, and Team Lightyear was like struck with a high-voltage electric shock. Their eyes blackened out for a while, whereas their limbs twitched. XR suffered from small short circuits, but was the person less injured. The bath transport lost its course, now diving towards the Capital's atmosphere with a breezy speed.

"Ououuuf... w-what was that?" Instead of whippoorwills, Buzz saw now beautiful stars and glimmering traffic lights spinning around his brain-box.

"We... we got hit. And... we seemingly lost our course, too. "

"Aah! We're all gonna die! We're gonna fall! We're gonna drown!" XR's short circuit current caused some paranoia.

"Now don't be dim-witted there! It was just one shot, and I think the fire has ceased", Lightyear answered, being right. The foreign vessel had lost its interest as it had dropped its plaything. It just let the trash jump off the deep end. "We continue with our jetpacks. But we need a new shelter. And, this is again where you come in question, ranger XR."

"Yeah, I'm always the one who does the messy work. Alright... let's have some camouflage..." The upper atmosphere's cloud levels had been achieved, from where the robot had picked up an idea. He took some kind of combustion gas generator from inside himself, forming soon a compact rain cloud around the whole team. The tub was left to fall its own way.

"Buh-bye, go crash someone's birdbath!" 

Inside the artificial cloud XR had formed, Team Lightyear soared down from the shelters of the gray billows. The night had approached this hemisphere, whereas the sun let its now less friendly-feeling face shine on the other side. And the murkiness was initially deeper than ever. The presence of the dark side roamed above the Core, and physically it was boosted with the lightless streets where all the peaceful, brimful life had passed away. But, instead there had grown other kind of civilization. Like death cups that bloom after the rains, had those invaders settled their base stations around the city. Above the streetlines were hovering hundreds of cocoons, glowing in the darkness with the forces of bioluminescence. Their lusterless, yellowish gloom made them look like perturbed wraiths, casting their deadly regards down on the fallen world. And they loomed practically everywhere. No street corner or skyscraper roof was without their attendance. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands had the big mother pupae kept those inside them, ready to send more sisters to rejoice with the malevolence.  

Cold shivers went down Team Lightyear's spines. Such a terrible panorama had even Planet Z never allowed with all its purple desolateness. Maybe Capital Planet would have resembled faintly something alike if the Emperor on the top of his Empire had been able to conquer the Alliance. And in all the impossibility, Zurg's reign might had been a paradise compared to what now the obscure future brought along.

The dark harvest went on. Where the foreigners had set their ships, there the Alliance life had been disabled. Yet no souls were lost on this terrain, but as the premiere, everyone had been banished to be locked inside their houses, or in other miscellaneous buildings. A rough curfew was set up. The villains had obviously some kind of very polished strategy of how they moved on. This told that the infiltrators were experienced subjugators,like the ancient Hernando Cortez and his armored men. Blitzkrieg it was, with the perfect technical advances. The Milky Way was only full of savages in the hidden eyes of those unknown. Lebensraum, elbow room, that was what they wanted... to settle their ruthless race to overrule. Oh the times, oh the ages. Never became the beings tired of trying to rule new areas and subdue peoples? The greed, the injustice maybe never ended. And now, the evilness had only found a new form, after the Empire was only shady history.

Team Lightyear advanced slowly in the shelter of their faint disguise. Terrified they observed the grounds below, the scale and quickness of the foe.

"Blast... they definitely caused this. The electricity failure. As Warp said, everything is out of power here!" Buzz cursed under his breath.

"Even the streetlights... How are we supposed to see where we're going?" Munchapper asked arduously.

"We all have compasses and navigation instruments in our wrist communicators! And they do work", the Captain reminded him.

"Well, where are we going?" Mira inquired.

"Umm... good question. Warp's mansion?"

"Yeah, that sounds good, unless the local dark side geeks keep a secret society meeting there. Have ya heard about the blue pal since he dialed your wrist comlink number and blew you sky high?" XR noted.

"I... don't know. But maybe it's not a good idea to use the radio frequencies. Who knows, if those diabolic intruders have hacked even them!"

So they resolved to flit towards the Darkmatter Mansion, whatever they would then find there. As Mira had once suggested, it would be reasonable to gather the heads together. Hence the cloud turned to fly lower. Carefully keeping the phony vision of a normal natural phenomenon, Team Lightyear could keep themselves doggo for a while.

However unlike the two ships rolling around Star Command, not all the antagonists were imbeciles. Many blobs began scathing their heads, as an odd nimbus was hurtling a bit above the tallest buildings, and way too rapidly for something that consisted of ice crystals and water vapor.

"Brurbsis!" someone had activated a T-ray scanner inside a nearby villain craft. Illegal movement observed... As a result, the energy ray channels of this detector ship began to heat up. The cloudy group was quite much already in its destination. With their orienteering applications, they had found a beeline to Agent Z's castle. But now, an ionized blast was whizzing in the air after them, striking the unaware quad from behind.

"AAGRRAAHHAAAH!" a painful cry was heard from inside that smog. This strike, ripping in the organs of those ranges, was even more powerful than the one they had experienced in space. It was close that no one's heart began to fibrillate, or worse. Yet, it paralyzed everyone's muscles for a while, forcing them to fall down on the street beneath. Luckily the drop was not anything near several kilometers, but only a few floor-measures of a normal building. A person wearing only jeans and a jacket would not have survived a fall like this, though. But due to Team Lightyear's open jetpacks, added with their suits' nanodecelerators, they found themselves on the pavement quite much with no injuries. Their muscle circulation came express back, putting their reflexes alert. Namely, the vessel that had fired them, was ready for another action.

"Get on your feet and run!" Buzz panted, ready to flounce half a mile ahead in a nanosecond. Mira, he, and Booster had hurts, but now they would just have to save themselves, whatever it would take. Warp's manor was right along the same street. As it was comprehensibly faster to escape with jetpacks, they blasted off with them towards the site. Dodging artfully the nasty shots coming from behind, they achieved the front door.

With his both fists, Buzz banged the metallic surface of the entrance. The giant house seemed to be completely without life, no light was showing its warm welcome from inside.

Seconds passed, Lightyear almost trying to break open the gateway in his anguish. The rest tried to hide from the fiend in the alcoves of the entrance scala. And the cocoon up there quietly floated towards them, obviously at the present scanning the environment.

Abruptly, for Buzz' relief, the door creaked open just a millimeter. A yellowish eye peeped out, then the gap widened.

"Quasars, Lighthouse! I thought it was one of those gelatin creeps! Get in and now!" A forceful hand gripped Buzz' arm, so that it almost hurt. "Now betta explain what the dratted heck you have done up there!" Then the spoken man snatched Lightyear in, and the rest space rangers followed in a bolt.

As the locks were closed, and the garden left to its own ghoulish appearance, the strange pupa up there stopped its stirring. Something squelched inside it, commanding it to retreat to its previous post. Obviously the aliens did not care what was going on inside the houses, but only wanted to keep the streets empty. Yet, this unknown motivation at least left the people to be able to stay in the shelters of their dwellings.

The halls of Warp's palace were almost black. The dark-red and black decoration sucked even the rest of the light available, so it was only one big shadow in there. The man of the house leaded the baffled Team Lightyear towards some lower floors with a crystal torch in his hand. From his twisted face could be seen that he went through extreme feelings of irritation and confusion.

"Now WHAT is going on? First, blam, the electricity goes off. Even our fridge decided go outta power, spat out a real flood, and put the whole kitchen floor swim. And then, the lobs splat out of nowhere, trying to turn us to grilled sausages with their bazookas or whatever. Quasars, I saw those flubbies with my own eyes! And I seriously once thought the Rhizomians were ugly!"

"Warp, listen to me, I..." Buzz began, but got a frown more deadly than Zurg's hyper-death ray as his prize.

"Well ya got one heckuva lot to explain! Now, watch the stairs, the rest of ya jibbings." Darkmatter had pulled a curtain aside in the end of one alcove, revealing a spiral staircase behind it, going down. With angry steps, he began to descend, the faint lantern in his hand.

"This is not our fault! We did as much as we could!"

"Ya? An' these sunny fellas came from the Gate, right?" Warp looked up. "With candy and lollipops to offer?"

"Warp, listen to me!" Buzz almost yelled now. "They have taken the whole Star Command in control! They... they shot Commander Nebula, he may be dead! And we... we barely fled. All of us have injuries, we were just fired down from the sky. Everything is in chaos!"

Darkmatter went timid in a second. He had had the idea that this whole muss was because of some Star Command's half-failed experiment. At the root of the staircase, he opened up another door, and behind it seemed to be miles of tunnels and myriads of more entrances.

"What kind of labyrinth is this house of yours?" Mira whispered.

"Well we need one cratery windings now 'cause there's one real Minotaur in the other end. The folks are now solvin' maze tests in the funky plasma-persistent air-raid shelters. Glad I happened to be upstairs so I heard your booms. Okay... even the Emperor and Empress are down here."

"Dad!" Lightyear yelped, "I was searching for him!"

"Hmheh, must be your lucky day today then, 'cause here he is, ta-da." Darkmatter unlocked one heavy alloy-reinforced exit, kicking it open with a big boot. Behind it was a group of people sitting at a table, in the matt light of red crystals. Zurg stood up, whereas Warp gesticulated to an elder woman with her two daughters to move to the adjacent empty room. This madam was Mrs. Adlene back from Xaneda, the family's guest that was paying visit with a bit ill timing. But a serene beginning for a noveau day it had been, no one could have forecasted the hours to change it into a dark hell. Ay'noh was taken away too, sleeping in Adlene's arms.    

------

In the softly illuminated bunker, a gloomy group sat and melancholically discussed. Team Lightyear, and the other well-known (excluding Nebula) had been hours already trying to get sense into the sudden catastrophe. Out there, the enemy reigned, ready to extend its dark arms over the whole Galaxy. What was there in sight, but unknown obscurity, slavery, total chaos? There were the fanatics now, who had wanted so eagerly to touch the infinity, as the prisoners of the foe.

"Just... what _can_ we do? Can we _do_ anything?" Buzz banged his head to his fists.

Silence.

"Does anyone know?" he raised his regard to meet the others. They stared back at him, with crestfallen miens.

"So... this is it? The end? And what I've always believed in... freedom, justice... are they now... _gone_?"

Silence.

"Has even _hope_ been taken away from us?" Lightyear whispered.

This word and its boosted tone brought some life into the maroon chamber.

"No, Son. The hope is not gone." Zurg rose up from his seat, and walked to Buzz. Leaning down to him, he took the Captain's both hands into his own, looking his scion straight in his blue eyes. Concern, but also pride reflected from Zora's experienced regard.

"Son, you are speaking wise thoughts. The hope is not gone. So..." he rose back up and loosened his hold, turning to the middle floor. "So... I suggest we shall at least once more think about this whole issue. What can _we_ do, if we _can_ do anything?"

"I don't think there's anything we can do..." someone sighed.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing. If it is so, I was there the day the strength of men failed", the old man growled. 

"C-could we... try to get the electricity back? Then we could defend ourselves. And... then we could get the fridges to work too." Booster put carefully a finger up to allot his idea.

"Good, good..." the Emperor's face brightened up a bit, "We shall need discussion. All the hours this far we have just sat here like some pathetic brain-pods in their jars. We shall not fall into the abysses of grandiloquence. More opinions do we have?"

"Umm... how exactly could we try to bring the electricity back? It all started when the Gate began to foam. It... it's somehow relating to that", Mira pointed out.

"What do our gizmo profis say?" Darkmatter turned his regard to Zarah.

"I... I've been building it up in my head... but... there's so many gaps in my theory."

"I do have a theory too. What if we would hear yours and then we shall compare it with mine?" Buzz' father uttered. He received some baffled regards as a prize. Once he did not bluster about his 'incomparable intelligence', but was ready to hear the others?

"I..." Choi began somewhat shyly, "I have wondered about the empty dimension thing. When you went in to the portal, you met this white wide open. Now I've assumed, that..."

"Now how is this relating to the problem of the power cut?" Buzz contemplated.

"I'm just coming to that. See... those aliens can't have come from that empty dimension, but maybe... maybe they have some kind of... how'd I explain it... a matched pair for the..."

A deep yea cut short Zarah's curving chatter. "Another half for the gate. Indeed, that is what I have understood too. A straight way to this weird galaxy where those cursed, pathetic, idiotic snots have come from, is possibly regulated with two doors, the white world in a way working as a tunnel between those two. And this would mean..."      

"...that som'one's pullin' the levers an' playin' Hitler about 12 million light years away?" Warp threw in.

"Erm... how about the electricity issue?" the younger Lightyear was still without the proper retort.

"It may be that someone's sending a... sort of signal from _the other side_. This is just a guess. But maybe if someone sends there a sort of a distorting electromagnetic signal, or whatever, it could theoretically affect to certain kind of frequency-dependent electronic devices so that... ahem... their natural signal frequency gets interfered and distorted so that they won't work any more." Choi had a tirade. 

Buzz fiddled his whiskers and his blue eyes looked dozy.

"Buzzy Boy. Tsut-tsut-tsut. That means simply that the aliens are controlling the phenomenon that puts our electricity off. Did they not teach you any physics at the Space Ranger Academy?" Zurg folded his arms over his big chest.

"Umh, well... it's been _a bit of time_ since I was at the Space Ranger Academy, Dad. But, there's no time for this. No time for wondering what I once learned and didn't learn. Yet, _something_ I've learned during the years I've been a space ranger. And that is, quickness. And if we are quick now, we can stop this madness", Lightyear orated.

"Stop? How?"

"We are... going through the gate. The key lies behind it." 

"WHAT?" Everyone looked Buzz their jaws on the floor.

"There's no other choice. Never give up, never surrender. We're going to that other Galaxy and now. I don't know what's out there, but there's the source to all this." Buzz stood up from his chair, taking an over-bombastic pose. He would have been a good model for a statue-sculptor, now.

"But that's impossible, completely impossible. How are we supposed to get past the enemy ships, when there's not a single working ship even available!" someone sighed.

"We have our jetpacks. They work."

"But Buzz..." Mira added, "that's even _more impossible_. Don't you remember what just happened to us? We were tried to squash like moths a trillion times in row! And we don't know what's behind there, it's..."

But Lightyear wrinkled his brows even deeper, creaking his teeth. "If no one's going with me, I'm going alone! I..."

"Sorry to interrupt, but... that jetpack thing might actually work", a cautious female voice was heard. All the heads turned to gawp at Zarah, who had arisen too.

"Work? But how? The enemy detects every movement!"

"I think... we have here something against that." The leers followed her back, as she vanished behind the massive door with a torch crystal in her hand. Silence fell upon the hall. Some distant clatter echoed from upstairs, then rapid steps from the staircase. She in a breeze appeared back, something round in her hand. "Darkie, don't you remember we got this?" she showed the object to her mate.

"Quasars, I must got wet sawdust in my head! Babe, that's it! No borrowed plumes, feathers or cloaks, this is the perr-rfect cloak!"

"What is that thing actually? Looks like a baseball to me", XR sneered.

Now came one difficult part. This ball was from Xaneda, and that could not be revealed. So, the others were only told that it followed the same technology as Warp's ships. Those Xanedian vessels, as usually, had the frequency interferator that made them generally invisible. The thingamajig was a mini-micro version of those shield generators, like a pocket-protector. The redhead shifted it in her small palms, that blue, cold globule that had a round button on the top, and some kind of little holes all around it, like in a sponge. On the bottom there was another knob, and a marker of some kind.

"You just hold this in your hand, push the lower button to adjust the orb diameter, then the upper one to switch it on, and voilá, you're invisible." A diminutive demonstration was performed. A flash of blue light...and the girl's hand in the shelter of the interferating undulation seemed to have dipped beyond other dimensions. It was completely invisible for everyone.

"Whoa! Craters and nanotubes! That's it!" Buzz's eyes sparkled with noveau enthusiasm.

Mira, Booster and XR clearly recalled, how such a larger-scale instrument had given the best grades when infiltrating Planet Z some time ago. Thereby they did not give opposing statements. But the Captain wanted some assurance.

"But are you absolutely sure no one can detect us behind this?"

"Well... my pockets are empty. And I'd trust that gimmick like my left-foot sock. It has never betrayed me", Darkmatter commented.        

"But, there's one thing to note. The diameter where this app can work is restricted. If we all go, we must arrange ourselves so that we fly in a compact formation."

Buzz' delighted smile evaporated the mist of sadness away from his feelings. He would not have to go solo to face the fatalities, but had many helping hands giving him support. Yet, he gave a speech about the odds that no one might come back alive, if they would even reach the extragalactic gate in one piece. Full of perils would be the nearly impossible leap, with the dark likelihood that the Milky Way would stay as the slavery's pawn for forever. But, at least they would have tried then. Tried, and maybe lost their lives for that. But if it would bring freedom for billions and again billions of others, it was a question of dignity and bravery. As he once more inquired, whether all the present would come to aid him, he got nods as responses from every direction. 

Mariañ had been bitten by a tiny hesitation mosquito. With some face-twisting, she warbled, "Ehii... I know I have to come, but then again I'm not sure because... no, I'll come! Umm... but I should be here at home to... but if I come, then... ih, but I need to..."

A sudden long finger that began to titillate her under her chin, brought an answer along. "Indeed you shall come, child. Now it is decided. Jim-kraken-dandy." Then a wide palm patted her crown.

"Tih!"  

However, one beckoning caused rancour. The host's quick pupils had caught the sight of Zarah. She was with a good speed pouring out more technobabble about the shield generator functions, when her mate's statement stopped her.

"Za? What are you thinking? You can't come."

"But... why? Of course I'm coming because..." she raised her brows.

"No! Don't be stubborn now, Za. It's _no_, for cryin' out loud." Warp had been on an irritated mood the whole day, so this event was not there to boost up any cooling. He in addition was quite inconsiderate with his words.

"But Darkie... I..."

All the present in the room grasped that there was a beginning storm in the air. That could be seen from Warp's crumpled brows and from the darkened gaze. Ponderously he rose up from his seat and took the way across the room towards her.

"No. This time it's an absolute no", he muttered and was left to stand in front of her, hands on hips.

Her timid regard approached his austere face. "But..."

"I know ya would be keen on coming with, but this situation is far much different from the gigs we have done before. You're a mother. Ya got a little girl to take care of."

"But Warp, I..."

Darkmatter's voice gave a crack, as if he would have tried to look very hard from outside, but inside was struggling with an emotional fight. And that it was in the very reality. His heart was to burst when he had grapped the audio waves coming from her side.

"No, Zarah. You listen to me, now. The laws of xaret¨a bind ya, and that's why ya have to obey me. I'm your Master, remember that." The last words were moreover gulped than told out with a clear tone.

Swallowing the lump away from her throat, Choi kept eyeing a bit frightened at this alien. Under her cover she still had a bit of fear towards him, especially because of his very sturdy and erect appearance beside her. And now this. He did very scarcely refer to this master-submissive-relationship, merely only with humour, but now there was sheer seriousness reflecting from that stern frown. It made icy shivers go down her back, alike she would have been suddenly in the deep forest of Planet Yrmh, fleeing Zurg's menace. Thus, attempting hard to produce the sentence she wanted to form, she slurred to him, "W-Warp...? I... I can see your point of view, but I'd like to talk to you..."

He was solely about to bark an objection back, but came to glance around the room in his thoughts. Startling a bit, he noticed that everyone there gawped at him. His synapses rolled Zarah's words in his brains for a fraction of time, then captured what was her expression. Such timidity had her face not revealed in a long time. And worse, he caught the glimpse of grief. The one feature concerning him he had tried to uproot away from her with tenderness.

Nodding with no sound, he asked her to stand up and walk to the second empty room beside this chamber. After she had stepped over the threshold, he jammed the door shut behind Choi. Now, again as he had gotten his full courage back, the words were thrown upon her quite angrily. 

"What are you thinking? Coming to that place? Quasars, this time it's going too far. Who will take care of Ay'noh? Huh? I can't accept this." Shaking his head with confuse and mere frustration he took then a little walk across the floor.

Zarah swallowed again the hindering clod that was crawling up her trachea. "Warp, will you listen to me, now? I've been on every single trip and travel with you, all the distresses we have gone through together. What's the difference with this one? And on my behalf, do you think I could let you _alone_ to such a place?"

And he went on traipsing the insane circle along the parquet, giving there and then beetle-browed glares towards her. "Don't try to turn my mind with similar jabber you had before going to Mister Purple-Admirer's Planet when we had to get his lack-wit laddie away from there. You WILL stay home, and take care of our daughter, and fly back to Xaneda when it's possible... will I then return or not." Actually, Darkmatter got abruptly perplexed because of his own conclusion. There was really the likelihood he would... die. Thus he stopped his foolish wandering.

"Would you listen a bit to your submissive? Isn't my role in this union to support you in all the ways I can? Don't you remember the words of the Eldest when we were wed? _With patience you two, in the future, your mortal and human weaknesses bear and to each other forgiving be. No fortune there for selfishness is!_As a wise Master you should listen to the weaker one at least a little!" Zarah stuttered, her big, green eyes almost watery. She stood in a corner in a half-cringed position.

But Warp had not caught the meaning of the statement. Moreover, he wrinkled his forehead and blurted, "What? I'm _selfish_ for commanding you to stay home and safe? Quasars! How can you call me _selfish?_ And what about Ay'noh? _What about her_?"

"That's just what I'm trying to explain you. Who do you think is _safe_ in this Galaxy any more if you and the rest fail? Do you really think this bunker down here will stay safe, where you want to lock me in? And what about Xaneda?  Do you think it would stay safe? No! Those whatever-they-are will find it all, sooner or later, and enslave the population just like the rest. What kind of future you think that would be? And, Warp, I cannot stand you going without me to any places concerning danger. I have promised to be beside you whatever happens, wherever you'd go. Please try to understand. And if you'd never come back, do you think I would..." she broke up, the thinking of his passing was too much to deliberate in this occasion. Hacking she still went on, her chest heavy with sorrow, "...I have been your help, your supporter in every place this far. There IS no difference between this. And... w-would I be... a-a good caretaker of Ay'noh, I would do _nothing but worry_ after you when you would be gone... I'd... well you know very well _what_ I'm like when I'm depressed. And that would struck me sooner or later. I know I sound like a b-bad mother, b-but wouldn't it be better to give Ay'noh to the protection of someone else, l-like Mrs. Adlene...? I mean, s-she's here, she has to stay here in any case..."

A few seconds the male just jutted there on the middle floor, his wide-open eyes aimed piercingly at her. Those were sagacious expressions, as he now had had the sense to hearken to her. Dozens of times more savvy her heart announced than his hastily yelled groans. And what was more, was his wife not almost an expert in bioscience and -technology? Weren't these sinister slime-intruders basing all their forces and advances on organic devices instead of the familiar and smug metallic ones the Milky Way produced? She would merely be a help on the journey, if possible. Hence he had to face the fact that she was right. With a dozy mien decorating his visage, he flopped down to the sofa that was at the back wall.

"Quasars..." Warp murmured, burying his face into his only palm. And soon he felt something warm nuzzling against him, as attempting to console the troubled alien. A pair of hands drew his hand away from his face, squeezing it.

"Haven't I tried to be always a humble and obedient submissive for you?" an elegiac whisper came below his ear. Turning to Zarah's side, he encountered her lachrymose eyes and a bit timorous look. Her green irises looked profound with the water of sadness she attempted to hold back. Agent Z perceived she would have wanted to bury her head under his arm, but that the little woman was afraid to do that. Another prompt came from her side, "Please... don't be... m-mad at me."

Warp skimmed her pale cheek with his fingertips. Yes, she was always pale due to her fair pigment, but now seemed to be waner than in a long time. The robust man felt a sharp scorch in his chest, seeing this tiny creature again so cautious in front of him. Running his fingers through her hair, he at the same time put his huge metal arm behind her, in order to take the girl into his warm enfold.

"Shht... my li'l tiny poor thing... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry I yelled at you... I never ever should have done that... how stupid I was..." he mumbled into her ear, while clasping her tight against his wide chest. "I'm not mad at you. Shht. You have been a lot wiser than me. Poor thing, no need to sob..."

"So what are you ordering me to do?" a wavering question was presented against his shirt.

"Just like ya said, li'l thingie. You're coming with me and we'll let Adlene take the good care of Ay'noh." Sighing he continued, "I know... it sounds a bit cruel to leave her alone... the poor thingie..."

"T-That's why I... t-thought you'd keep me as a b-bad m-mother be-because..." the stuttering went on.    

"No, no, no." Warp pressed his cheek against her forehead, smoothing her locks with his wide palm, "No. You're a good mommy for her and a wise wife for me. Shht..."

Her sorrow was taken away by the long, deep kiss he gave her on her lips, while the gentle Master embraced her hard in his safe clasp.

The room behind the Darkmatter chamber-door had been silent in waiting. Not a single person had ever seen Warp and Zarah arguing severely with each other. Some yells had echoed through the wall, and then the complete taciturnity.

"Wonder what's happening there?" Mira gave a cautious blurt.

"I can tell that." XR hummed. "My statistic calculator tells that the match was won one-zero, and that one point went to... ta-da... Missus Darkie."

"How can you be so sure about that?" Mira gave a snort. "Warp Darkmatter is..."

At the same instant the entrance of mysteries creaked open. The Darkmatters tiptoed out, with their ridiculous height difference. Of course it was tender from Warp's side to bury his wife under his wide and big arm and keep her pressed there, but the view was always as absurd. Choi's crown barely verged on his left armpit, and when she walked now a bit hunched, she looked even shorter than usually. And as the man himself was wide as a garage door, it gave more ludicrousness to the whole issue.   

Nova actually produced a small burst of laugh, which she muffled rapidly with a palm. Of course she should not have chuckled in the cost of this kind of matters. 

XR snapped his fingers, "See, I _was _right. My standard deviation rectifier doesn't fail, although the stars would fall, and the sky would turn green."

Everyone rolled their eyes again, well that was the most likable result that XR's utters caused. Warp sat back in the sofa, not letting his little submissive at all flee from his arms. He put her to sit on his knees, while going on with today's grave discussions.

"Umh... obviously Mrs. Darkmatter is..." Buzz put up a couple of probing words.

"...I won't leave my babe anywhere!" the blue man snapped, but continued then his forehead wrinkled, "And although we both feel truly bad to leave our daughter alone, I came to the conclusion as the Master, that Za comes with."

"Eight companions. So be it. You shall be the Fellowship of the Gate" Zurg solemnly concluded. "And now... we shall leave this house after the first preparations, and go to visit mine."    


	8. Door to door

Pullulation agitated the habitants and guests of Warp's mansion. Like little ants, they bristled here and there, running smaller and bigger errands. Warp and Zarah needed to get their space suits on, Mrs. Adlene and her daughters needed a good, safe place in the very lowest floors of the huge house. And there would the tiny Darkmatter also stay, in the good care of this kind woman. Of course, if it would have been anyhow possible, she had flied to Xaneda and brought the baby along. And, as huge risk as it was to use the comlink frequencies in the times of possible wiretapping, Warp gathered up his Capital Planet's network to come and take his palace as their headquarters. This mere crowd consisted of all kinds of 'friends', native Xanedians, and some of Zurg's parole intendants. Out of nowhere a few people had already popped in the lower rooms, and soon it was evident how they had done that. This architectural oddity was straight connected to the local subway mesh. Peculiar it was, but down there the slimes did not yet govern. They only hovered above the houses, but the tube tunnels were a free area. As there were several buildings connected to each other similarly, it was neat to take advantage of this one weak link the blitzkrieg plan.

Buzz did even a more venturesome deed. He endeavoured to call Commander Nebula's wrist communicator. Nothing had been heard about his state since the invasion. But... as for the doleful fact, ex-Zenith received only cosmic noise. It meant either that Zeb's com channel was broken, or that he could not answer. And the latter one might mean his death. Also, what came to Team Lightyear, they were given a small medical check. None of them had come to think about their health state during the heated discussions. But all what was found, were some minor ambustions from the plasma doses, and some harmless occasional convulsions.

Nevertheless, after enough instructions and goodbyes were given, and after a flock of all kinds of strange life forms had come to colonise the Mansion, it was time to go. All the possible safety schemes were taken in use, so that Ay'noh and company could have not had better circumstances under _these_ circumstances. And from pomp to circumstance... The eight travellers descended now in to the subway tunnels, beginning to promenade with a good speed along the pedestrian ramps, towards the Emperor's quarters.

Houses. They were status symbols, if what. Houses. The more ridiculous the owner, the more absurd were also the home solutions. If someone wondered the fairy-tale-like architecture of Warp Darkmatter's second mansion, he would definitely need painkillers after getting headache from seeing Emperor Zurg's new abode.

The ex-menace lived with his young wife also in the suburb of the wealthier people. Although Zora had been a mere ragamuffin with his nonexistent fortune after the fall of his reign, he was absolutely not penniless any longer. His girl earned good moola as a surgeon, allowing thus less inferior habit styles. But then again, someone would have amazed her taste. And this consternation did not only include the marital issues, but also the home where she lived. She had let her goofy husband do almost everything what he cooked in his foolish old brain-cube (yet equipped with _supreme intelligence_). Number one achievement was, that the three-storey single-family house was painted purple. Well, that was not quite a shocking surprise. But then, he had let the Trade World grubs to build a set of horns on the roof (the chimney had its own little horns too), and all the windows had been reshaped to be triangles with lime-green frames, as well as the main door had started to resemble a grinning Z-helmet teeth plate. The silly building would have started to resemble a miniature Zurg Tower, unless the certain authorities of the Alliance had not given Zora a warning about not to go too far with his architectural innovativeness. He was namely about to saw the front wall of the third floor off, and put there a giant round window with a Z-staining on it. But according to his parole controllers, it would have caused negative attention in the neighborhood and hence denied it.

And yet, Mariañ Lightyear was happy to live in such a clown household. She was the first one to lead the guests in. There was no need to patter through the garden to the front door, but as the result of some mole-work, there was a direct underground connection from the subway to Zoxedaszeĉ's 'palace', too. Through a cellar door, the visitors squeezed themselves in. There was a set of winding stairs leading upstairs, where the woman gesticulated to the others to come.

"I shall go to change my space suit on", Zurg announced gravely. "Hornets, take the prisoners... eh, excuse me, I was in my own thoughts", he cleared his throat.  "Smoopsiepoo, take them upstairs, and put your own Star Command suit on too. I shall come back soon. Have some rest and plum juice." Thus the man vanished behind a metallic door that slammed itself tight shut after him.

"Eep! I hate cellars!" Mariañ whimpered, and asked the others to accelerate their ascending. "Cellars are always dark and there are spiders in them!"  

Some time went by, as the waiting herd up there expected the Emperor to return.

"Now where the blast is Dad loitering? We are running out of time, troops!" Buzz stirred aggrieved around the room. At the very instant his demands were fulfilled. A hatch on the floor, right beside him opened up, and Zurg popped in. He had built the same kind of odd, round hatches around the house he had used to have in Zurg Tower. It was a mere wonder why the old male had not rebuilt his hovering throne too.

And Buzz... he moaned in sole embarrassment, as he saw his father's 'space suit'. It indicated to be his Evil Emperor's robe, apparently re-sewn, and improved with a few new details. Instead of the grinning ridiculous-looking helmet was a transparent bubble, just like in a normal space ranger uniform. But the black cape was there (attached with a golden Z-decorated buckle), as well as the purple long robe that covered wholly Zurg's long legs. Obviously some of the Trade World grubs had fixed the farcical frock, since the chest plate was re-smithed, the clawed gauntlets back in shape, and there was no spot of dirt on the glossy violet canvas. Namely, when the disastrous accident had happened to the Emperor back on Planet Z, the sharp piece of scrap metal that had burst his right lung indeed had naturally damaged the famous Emperor's robe. But now everything seemed to be tidy again.

But Buzz slapped his non-existent forehead with a wide palm, creaking his teeth so that even the neighbors down the street heard it, "Father! WHAT is THAT?" In his eyes this mannequin show was something so daft.

"What? This is my glorious space suit! Mwa ha ha, from the abysses of oblivion it has risen again, my majestic robe, full of power and force!" Zora gloated and tested his rocket boots. They worked as fine as in his Emperor days. "Ahh, Jim-kraken-dandy, I am walking on air!" he took a short hover across the room.

"But Dad, you can't... I mean... you can't go out looking like THAT! That's just absurd!" Buzz spread his arms in the air, his face crimson red with shame. The others on the background mainly chuckled for the whole theatre.

"What? Do I hear you saying an evil word against your Father? Buzzy Boy, you shall learn to respect your parents! Shame on you! You go right ahead to stand in the corner and think of your words!" Zora's grave, deep voice scolded his scion.

"Dad! The universe in jeopardy and you're giving me a lesson on how to behave?" the younger man was thunderstruck. Sometimes Zurg's mentality went over his head. "And please don't call me _Buzzy Boy_ in front of everybody! I am a Captain of Star Command and..." he continued as annoyed.

But his father cared a piece of moon crater about this jabbering. "I shall call you what I shall call you, Buzzy Boy. I AM your Father, and you shall learn to respect the one who is elder than you." At this moment, the ex-villain's bass voice became milder, as he had turned about and faced his young wife's admiring expression. She was ogling at her husband with glazed eyes, and a dreamy smile had drawn her mouth from ear to ear.

"You do like my suit, Smoopsiepoo?" he took a smug grin, flashing his big, white teeth.

"Mmm... you're so powerful... and _purple_! I love purple!" Mariañ tittered girlishly, furthermore evaluating him with her regard.

"Grohh!" the Emperor snorted, took a bombastic pose, and even bulged his right arm's big bicep. He was apparently trying to imitate Hercules.

"Ooh... Mmm!" the girl swooned in front of him.

"Blegh..." XR stuck his tongue out with nausea. "A-Okay, are we ever gonna get rid of the bill and coo in our save-the-universe-missions? It has become a major problem already! At first the Darkmatters, and now _the Lightyears_ start the same? Yuck!" The robot's face was distorted in such a grimace that it was rather hard to describe. In any case, he was sickened to all the mushy scenes he had seen starting from the infiltrating joyride to Planet Z a few years ago. "When Buzz finally understands to snap his fingers and calls the tootsies to buzz around him, what it will then be? AARGHH!"

"Ahh, indeed. Now my glorious uniform needs only the helmet. Smoopsiepoo, where have you put my helmet?" Zurg rubbed his metallic fingers together so that it creaked.

"Umm... but Zora hun, you got your helmet there already!" Mariañ mentioned a bit baffled.

"Ahh, indeed, you mean this bubble helmet? It is only a spare one for emergency. I mean my Imperial Helmet, the one that has the working eye lasers and..."

Mariañ's mien turned uneasy as she in a bolt remembered what she had done to that particular object. It was back at Star Command, hanging from her doctor office ceiling, full of mould, and lobelias growing in it. So her husband did not know this horrifying detail?

"Umm... hun, I'm afraid it's not here! I... I took it to Star Command when you gave it to me, so that it would be in my office always reminding me of you!" she piped nervously.

"Hrhrmhh. Well, then I am afraid I cannot use it. Groh."

For Buzz this was a sole relief. It would have been the last drop for him, if his father's peculiar garments would have been added with that horn-decorated purple stupidity. In his heart he thanked to his stepmother that she had done a flower pot out of the Imperial Head Shield. 

---Space---

Capital Planet was left behind a good half an hour ago. At Zurg's front door, the Xanedian interferator shield had been activated, and all the travelers had set themselves inside it. And well it had fulfilled its task this far. Dozens and again dozens of cocoons were given a jeer, while flying by them entirely invisible. At the moment, the Core was well abaft, whereas the Gate became more and more nigh.

The dangerous diving attempt began. All the fellows had to advance in a tight formation, since the diameter of the frequency interferator device was not quite extensive. Buzz was this time holding the glowing ball, flitting in the very middle of the group. Darkmatter could not handle it at this instant, since his wife needed some aid. Zarah could not still fly well with a jetpack, although her skills had gotten some more practice since the Isgurdian avalanche. But, in such a dense place, Warp had to hold her by arm, so that she would not have accelerated out and hit the nearest enemy ship.

A little distance more until the portal. Nervousness filled everyone's inners, and in the best cases cold sweat was trickling down the necks under the space suits. The enormous spacecrafts loomed forwards there, guarding the hilus. Diffidently the gliders kept on talking to each other through the space suits' inner encrypted comlink.

"What can we actually expect when we get in there?"

"I have no idea", Buzz sighed. "If we end up to that empty dimension once again, then... I-I don't really know what to think of now."

"Darkmatter, are you absolutely sure the foe shall not detect us?" Zora kept an eye on the menacing foreign vessels. No movement was there to be seen, though.

"Well, if ya got betta gadgets in yar pockets than this shield, we'll gladly take 'em to use!"

"Hmhooh. Indeed. Groh. But do not be too proud of this technological item you have constructed. The ability to fly invisible is insignificant next to the power of the dark side."

Slowly, slowly, slowly the purple-vibrating hexagon became nearer. And so widened the Leviathans of the unknown too, breathing menace and evilness. The team would have to plunge through a very narrow slip between two of those behemoths, in order to crawl closer the honeycomb.

"Okay... easy now..." Buzz smacked his lips, "Keep a steady jetpack speed. We possibly need to tighten a bit up our formation. Booster, can you try to come a bit more towards the center?"

Munchapper's porky figure indeed caused some dilemma. He hardly avoided his other flank touching the hindmost border of the round energy sphere. "Uhh... I try my best, Buzz."

"You can do it, big guy!" XR fuelled, "Don't breath, pull your tummy in, cringe, duck, and keep your legs together. A-Okay, maybe now you understand WHY I try to keep telling you to turn to follow the diets the Miss Universe candidates have."

"I-I'm sorry..." the Jo-Adian replied almost in tears. He had with some half-supernatural means reduced a half of his surface area, going forwards now in some kind of double knot.

And actually, that trick was in the most efficient use now. The slim gap between those two immense ships came nearer. Forbidden it was even to skim them. Everyone held their gasps, as they barely slinked by those gray organic lumps.

"Phew... a-at ease, rangers..." Lightyear puffed, as a few meters later the spacecrafts were bypassed.

"I imagine that right now you folks are feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling soon down the rabbit hole." Warp pointed at the foaming purple turbulences of B.L.U.F.F. X-1014, which were at the instant only a few meters ahead.

"This is it... JUMP!" Buzz ordered one last time. Breathing deep, everyone boosted up more jetpack speed... and vanished inside the orb. 

...to be continued...


End file.
